The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross
Published 2007 · 170,000 words · about 11 hours at an average pace · Arts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, History, Nonfiction
How hard is The Rest Is Noise to read?
The Rest Is Noise scores 48 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: 38 out of 100
- Musical terminology made accessible. Historical vocabulary.
- Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
- Abstraction: 35 out of 100
- Musical concepts grounded in historical narrative.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Dense with musical description, biography, and political history.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- Mostly chronological with thematic threads.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Music as reflection of political and social forces.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Critical but empathetic engagement with composers.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- The story of modern music continues.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Chronological with interwoven biographical threads.
How The Rest Is Noise is regarded
The Rest Is Noise 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.