Chapter 9: Riding the Wagon With Ben
Within days of traveling, young Kvothe is finding himself riding in Ben's wagon (a.k.a. Abenthy's wagon). For someone with eyes as wide as his, the wealth of knowledge to be mined for a "true archanist" was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Being as mannered as possible, Kvothe was fishing for an excuse to let loose a flood of questions about his life at the university and Ben's profession. He just needed to find th right moment to let loose. After all, he couldn't just outright lay his hundreds of questions out at Ben's feet and expose himself to be as wide-eyed as he truly was... that would be rude. (And what if he refused?)
Fortunately, the moment comes and he doesn't refuse.
Kvothe asks, Ben answers and again, Kvothe tempers his wide-eyed intentions. At the university they taught all the sciences: Botany, astronomy, psychology, anatomy, alchemy, geology, and chemistry. And again; Kvothe waits, the moment comes, and his wide-eyed intentions are revealed.
"Could you teach me?"
* * *
Learning to Learn 102
Much like how Kvothe's parents were teaching him how to "learn to learn" at an early age (described in chapter 8), in this chapter, Ben now keeps the learning flowing in Kvothe's direction. But unlike Kvothe's parents who taught him the performance arts of song, dance, and theater, Ben now teaches him the basics of bontany, astronomy, psychology, anatomy, alchemy, geology, and chemistry. From his parents he learned the arts, from Ben he learned the sciences, and from both he learned how to learn.
The Scientific Method
It'll be interesting to see how Rothfuss chooses to handle the juggling of both science and magic in this world. In the face of the unexplained, it's reasoned that there is just lack of knowledge/data among scientists to explain the phenomenon. And in the face of "magic," what makes those same scientists so sure that the magic isn't just another example of the unexplained. What quantifies something as "unexplained phenomenon" versus "magic?" If it's just going to be arbitrary then that's going to be a little annoying. But if there's some structure and categorization behind it, then it works for me and I'm on board.
Remember, when Ben vaguely defines "sympathy" for Kvothe (when describing the sciences) he says Kvothe would probably consider it "magic." This means that it isn't actually magic. This also means that Ben is aware of how non-university graduates view unexplained phenomenon. Because of this, Ben has shown that he's very aware of everything I just described in the paragraph above.
My point is that this subject isn't just me over-thinking some aspect of the book. This isn't just me injecting something that's beyond the boundaries of what Rothfuss intends to cover. Like Ben, Rothfuss is very aware of everything described above and it'll be interesting to see how he handles it.
Twitter @BlogBookReview
You'll notice that I just created a Twitter account for these blogs and added a Blogger gadget at the bottom of this page. From that account I'll be announcing each new chapter review, talk about other fantasy shows that I'm currently watching (such as Game of Thrones episode 2 on HBO that's airing in about 4 hours from now), and talk about other science fiction books I'm reading (such as Dune).
If you're interested, you can follow me on Twitter @BlogBookReview.
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