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I bought Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind after much poking and prodding from friends, and because we were supposed to do an episode of it on the Incomparable. However, I’d been avoiding reading the book (and thus skipped out on last week’s podcast) because of two sentences with gibberish-y magic words. From those two sentences—and something unrelated about sleeping outdoors and cardboard female characters—I pretty much assumed I was signing myself up for Sword of Truth, round two, and with a “Do I really want to get myself into another unending crappy fantasy series?” I left the book untouched for two weeks, only to pick it up today.

Halfway through the book, I must now say: I am sorry, Name of the Wind. I have oh-so-thoroughly misjudged you.

Is it still tropey? Yes. Does it have a know-it-all as its main character? Quite so. But I can’t help but love it.

It all comes down to this: I’m a fool and a sucker for novels about musicians, minstrels, and theatrics. Especially when so much of the book, early on, reminds me of my childhood. Throw in an (admittedly) roguish ginger-haired smart-aleck with a quick wit and wrap it up with physics-based magic and a university interlude, and it’s like someone wrote this book just for my own inner giddy little child.

But, really, it’s about the performance. I think about fifteen minute ballads, mournful tales that can bring an audience to tears, storytellers that can silence a room in seconds—and I can’t help but feel this deep ache for the stage.

The narrator of the book captures so perfectly what a life—formerly so full of art—can become when suddenly devoid of it. The pain of losing that community, your instrument. The jealousy at seeing someone perform when you, yourself, can no longer do so. (I can’t think of anything more torturous.)

And when you see him reconnect with his passion… there’s something more inspiringly magical about that than the most spectacular sorcery.

It made me want to set down the book (which I was about halfway through) and just play. I’m rubbish at finger-picking on the guitar, but you can’t help but want to be better after reading something like this. So I played the folk songs I knew, I played the one Irish ballad my mother taught me long ago, and I started just picking at strings and seeing what came out.

This—my first GarageBand for iPad recording!—is the result of that last bit. I have no idea if I’m ripping off someone’s melody, but I thought it was pretty, and it perfectly represented the mood I found myself in. And really, isn’t that the point?

No, the book’s not high art. (And, having not even finished it yet, I can’t say if it will continue to make me as happy as it currently has.) Regardless, I value anything that would stir up enough emotion to make me abandon a story I was engrossed in to go create. I love this.

I am so very sorry, Name of the Wind. I hope you can forgive me. Have a drabbling tune in your honor.