In the midst of nothing

It's not that I'm lazy... Or should I say, it's not just that I'm lazy. Honestly, there hasn' t been anything to write about recently. I've been staying home all day, every day pretty much, tending to Timothy, getting much-needed sleep, working on David's grad school applications, and reading a fantastic book called The Name of the Wind.

As I said, it's a fantastic book in more ways than one. It's a fantasy tale set in a non-existent time and place, but it's also amazingly written. Most of the story is what we call a "frame tale," or a story within a story. It's full of heroism, devastation, awkwardness, love, hatred, mystery, passion, failure, and music. It's captivating.

And then the book just ends! Neither the framed tale nor the frame itself has any sort of ending. Both stories are just left completely hanging in midair, the way cartoon characters hang when they step off of a cliff before realising what they've done. How can Rothfuss just leave his readers in complete exasperation like that? Did he have to pause because he himself didn't know what would happen next? I hate to think a master weaver such as Rothfuss could really not know where the story is headed. More likely he paused because it was already 662 pages, and he knew the reader would need a rest. (Sort of Tolkienesque?) For whatever reason, Rothfuss leaves you entirely hanging. And the amusing thing is that the story's continuation--in The Wise Man's Fear--is already available for pre-order even though it doesn't come out until April 2009. I guess that says something about the book's demand. I, for one, will be buying the next book, unless I can borrow it, too, off my little brother. :)