Mystical Languages of Unsaying by Michael A. Sells
Published 1994 · 86,900 words · about 11 hours at an average pace
How hard is Mystical Languages of Unsaying to read?
Mystical Languages of Unsaying scores 77 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very 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: 78 out of 100
- Technical vocabulary across three religious traditions and their original languages.
- Sentence structure: 75 out of 100
- Long, carefully qualified academic sentences.
- Abstraction: 92 out of 100
- Apophasis — language about what cannot be said — is about as abstract as scholarship gets.
- Information density: 78 out of 100
- Close readings of seven mystics in their own terms.
How Mystical Languages of Unsaying is regarded
Mystical Languages of Unsaying holds a literary regard score of 55 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.