Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community by Lois Parkinson Zamora
Published 1995 · 130,000 words · about 11 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community to read?
Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community scores 62 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: 70 out of 100
- Combines postcolonial theory, comparative literary criticism, and ontological philosophy across essays.
- Sentence structure: 65 out of 100
- Abstraction: 82 out of 100
- High theoretical engagement with ontology, epistemology, and literary form across multiple essays.
- Information density: 80 out of 100
- Exceptional density: theoretical essays, historical surveys, and close readings across global literatures.
- Narrative indirection: 16 out of 100
- Scholarly essays are direct; indirection appears in essays analyzing it as a literary technique.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Analyses symbolic and mythic structures in magical realist texts throughout.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Predominantly earnest scholarly tone; occasional irony in essays critiquing Western rationalism.
- Resolution withholding: 14 out of 100
- Individual essays reach clear conclusions; the anthology's diversity resists single definitive resolution.
- Structural complexity: 50 out of 100
- Multi-author anthology spanning multiple theoretical schools, national traditions, and historical periods.
How Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community is regarded
Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community holds a literary regard score of 48 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.