Kvothe - Chapters 17, 18, and 19

Chapter 17 – Interlude – Autumn

Back in the Waystone Inn, Bast is nearly crying at Kvothe’s painful childhood. He keeps a straight face and gets some wood for the rest of the evening. And once alone, he sheds his tears.

Chapter 18 – Roads to Safe Places

Again with the threes. In dealing with pain, Kvothe talks about the three ways we cope. Sleep, forgetting, and madness. After the tragedy of losing his parents, he sleeps. Then he tries to forget. Then he borders on insanity.

Chapter 19 – Fingers and Strings

Kvothe goes native by killing rabbits, building a shelter, and surviving in the wild. And he begins to shut down his mind by focusing on survival and playing his lute. He focuses so much on playing his lute, that he eventually learns to play all day long. And he learns to play with six then five strings instead of seven. But when he was down to four strings, he decided it was time to leave his little base camp and venture into the world.

And he finally meets normal people but doesn’t quite know how to react. Kind of like Tarzan coming to London the first time.

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