Old Tales Retold by Lu Xun
Published 1936 · 315 pages · 35,000 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Short Stories, Satire, Mythological Fiction
How hard is Old Tales Retold to read?
Old Tales Retold scores 44 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
- Chinese mythological and historical references that require cultural context. The anachronisms add a layer of interpretive challenge.
- Sentence structure: 40 out of 100
- Lu Xun's compressed, witty prose. Shorter and more playful sentences than his realist stories.
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- Satirical commentary on Chinese culture is delivered through retold myths. The allegorical dimension requires cultural knowledge.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Dense with mythological references, historical allusions, and satirical anachronisms. Rewards knowledge of Chinese culture.
- Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
- The satirical layer operates beneath the mythological surface. The reader must decode which modern targets Lu Xun is attacking.
- Symbolic density: 50 out of 100
- The myths themselves function as symbols — each ancient story illuminates a modern Chinese vice or folly.
- Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
- Lu Xun's treatment of sacred myths is irreverent and politically pointed. The irony is both comic and corrosive.
- Resolution withholding: 35 out of 100
- The stories follow their mythological sources to completion, though Lu Xun's satirical twists add unexpected implications.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Eight standalone stories, each retelling a known myth. Simple narrative structures with satirical overlays.
How Old Tales Retold is regarded
Old Tales Retold holds a literary regard score of 65 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.