A Disaffection by James Kelman
Published 1989 · 337 pages · 84,250 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is A Disaffection to read?
A Disaffection scores 50 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 50 out of 100
- Scottish vernacular and working-class Glasgow dialect throughout.
- Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
- Stream-of-consciousness following protagonist's spiraling thoughts.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- Philosophical despair about work, class, meaning pervades Patrick's thinking.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Dense internal monologue with repetition and circling patterns.
- Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
- Patrick's perspective is limited; readers see what he cannot.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- The pipes Patrick finds become central, but symbolism understated.
- Ironic distance: 45 out of 100
- Kelman has sympathy for Patrick while showing his limitations.
- Resolution withholding: 60 out of 100
- Ending offers no resolution to Patrick's existential crisis.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Follows Patrick's consciousness over several days.
How A Disaffection is regarded
A Disaffection holds a literary regard score of 67 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.