The Civilized by Claude Farrère
Published 1905 · 319 pages · 65,479 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
How hard is The Civilized to read?
The Civilized scores 50 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: 50 out of 100
- Farrère writes in the cultivated French of the Belle Époque, rendered into English with its period flavor preserved. Colonial and military terminology appears naturally. The language is sophisticated but not obscure.
- Sentence structure: 48 out of 100
- The prose follows conventional early twentieth-century patterns—polished and formal without experimental complexity. Farrère writes to be understood, even when exploring morally murky territory.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- The novel stays grounded in the sensory world of colonial Saigon: opium dens, social gatherings, the tropical atmosphere. Moral and psychological themes emerge through behavior and setting rather than explicit analysis.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Farrère evokes his colonial world economically, providing enough detail to create atmosphere without drowning in documentation. The pacing allows you to absorb the setting without information overload.
- Narrative indirection: 50 out of 100
- The story unfolds directly, following its characters through their intrigues and dissipations. Farrère's moral perspective is clear even when his characters' actions are ambiguous.
- Symbolic density: 55 out of 100
- The "civilized" of the title carries obvious irony—these colonial officers embody corruption rather than civilization. Farrère develops this central irony without elaborate symbolic apparatus.
- Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
- Farrère writes from inside his characters' world while making clear its moral rot. The ironic title signals his perspective, and the narrative sustains that critical distance throughout.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- The novel moves toward dramatic conclusions for its characters within the colonial setting. Farrère provides narrative closure while the larger critique of colonialism remains implicit rather than resolved.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- The story follows conventional dramatic structure, tracking its characters through rising action toward climax. The period novel makes no demands beyond following its plot.
How The Civilized is regarded
The Civilized holds a literary regard score of 58 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.