Moses Ascending by Sam Selvon
Published 1975 · 208 pages · 56,367 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Fiction, Satire, Comic Fiction
How hard is Moses Ascending to read?
Moses Ascending scores 68 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: 62 out of 100
- Selvon employs a distinctive blend of standard English and West Indian vernacular, featuring terms like 'kiff-kiff,' 'bluefoot tart,' and 'raggae.' This unique linguistic texture, alongside occasional literary terms such as 'lucubrations' and 'magnanimously,' elevates the vocabulary beyond typical contemporary fiction.
- Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
- The prose often uses direct, conversational sentences reflecting the narrator's voice, yet it also incorporates longer, multi-clause constructions for reflective passages. The Patois-influenced grammar, such as 'make me feel incapacitated,' introduces non-standard structures that require careful reading, positioning it above straightforward declarative prose.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- The narrative remains largely concrete, detailing Moses's personal experiences, schemes, and social observations within his immediate environment. While Moses reflects on morality and societal issues, these philosophical musings are consistently grounded in his self-serving perspective and the unfolding plot, rather than abstract theoretical discourse.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- The excerpt maintains a moderate pace, presenting character interactions, plot developments like BP's theft and Bobbie's illiteracy, and embedded social commentary. The distinctive dialect and narrator's voice demand attention, but the text avoids overwhelming the reader with multiple concurrent plotlines or extensive allusions, making it navigable.
- Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
- The narrative is heavily filtered through Moses's unreliable, self-serving perspective, forcing readers to constantly infer meaning by reading against his stated intentions. His 'conversion' to philanthropy is immediately undercut by his actions and internal thoughts, such as his desire to exploit BP or cuckold Bobbie, requiring significant reader reconstruction of events and motivations. This level of inference is higher than Nick's bias in 'The Great Gatsby' (65), as Moses's self-deception is more pervasive.
- Symbolic density: 80 out of 100
- The text is rich with sustained symbolic motifs, most notably the 'Upstairs/Downstairs' dynamic, which allegorically represents shifting power structures and Moses's personal downfall. The Black Power movement itself functions as a symbol of superficiality and corruption, while Bobbie's illiteracy becomes a symbol of Moses's own blindness. This pervasive use of symbolism to convey deeper social and personal meanings places it significantly higher than 'The Great Gatsby' (75).
- Ironic distance: 85 out of 100
- A profound ironic distance exists between Moses's self-aggrandizing narrative and the author's implied critique of his hypocrisy, vanity, and racial prejudices. The humor and social commentary derive almost entirely from this gap, as Moses consistently misinterprets his own actions and the reactions of others. This constant satirical mode is comparable to 'The Sellout' (85) in its demand for reader recalibration.
- Resolution withholding: 75 out of 100
- The excerpt ends with Moses actively plotting further conflict and revenge, explicitly subverting any sense of closure or moral resolution. Despite his 'fall' to the basement, the narrative concludes with the promise of ongoing struggle and disruption, leaving the power dynamics unstable and the characters' fates unresolved. This open-endedness, where core conflicts persist and are set to escalate, is more pronounced than 'The Great Gatsby' (60).
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- The narrative maintains a largely linear chronology and a consistent first-person point of view from Moses, without significant timeline jumps, multiple narrators, or experimental forms. While Moses is an unreliable narrator, this unreliability primarily affects narrative indirection and ironic distance rather than the fundamental structure. The overall structural approach is straightforward, more akin to 'War and Peace' (40) than fragmented narratives like 'Flights' (88).
How Moses Ascending is regarded
Moses Ascending holds a literary regard score of 61 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.