The Divorce by Diane Johnson
Published 2010 · 298 pages · 24,000 words · about 1 hour at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is The Divorce to read?
The Divorce scores 39 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. 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: 38 out of 100
- French terms; accessible prose.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Clear, witty sentences.
- Abstraction: 40 out of 100
- Cultural clash and relationships.
- Information density: 40 out of 100
- Parisian social detail.
- Narrative indirection: 40 out of 100
- Observer narrator perspective.
- Symbolic density: 35 out of 100
- Limited symbolism; social comedy.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Johnson maintains comic distance.
- Resolution withholding: 35 out of 100
- Plot resolves clearly.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- Conventional narrative structure.
How The Divorce is regarded
The Divorce holds a literary regard score of 62 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.