Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature by Alberto Manguel
Published 1983 · 992 pages · 180,000 words · about 12 hours at an average pace · Anthology, Fantasy, Horror, Short Fiction
How hard is Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature to read?
Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature scores 51 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: 55 out of 100
- Wide range across contributors. Borges and Kafka demand more than King or Jackson. The anthology's breadth means vocabulary difficulty varies significantly by story.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- Many stories operate on allegorical or metaphysical levels. Borges and Kafka push abstraction high; others remain concrete. The anthology rewards philosophical reading.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Seventy-two stories create enormous cumulative density. Individual stories vary from spare to lush. The anthology's scope demands sustained attention.
- Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
- Many stories use indirection—parables, unreliable narrators, dream logic. The anthology's organizing principle itself is indirect, defined by what it includes rather than explains.
- Symbolic density: 60 out of 100
- Fantastic literature is inherently symbolic. Animals, transformations, impossible spaces, and magical objects carry weight across the collection.
- Ironic distance: 45 out of 100
- Variable by author. Borges is deeply ironic; Lovecraft is earnest. The anthology's juxtapositions create their own ironic commentary.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Many stories end ambiguously or with transformations rather than resolutions. The fantastic often resists closure by nature.
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- The anthology structure itself—thematic groupings across centuries and cultures—creates structural complexity. Individual stories range from simple to experimental.
How Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature is regarded
Black Water: The Anthology of Fantastic Literature holds a literary regard score of 73 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.