Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Published 1922 · 40,183 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Siddhartha to read?
Siddhartha scores 47 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: 40 out of 100
- Buddhist and philosophical vocabulary.
- Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
- Simple, rhythmic, meditative sentences.
- Abstraction: 65 out of 100
- Enlightenment and the nature of wisdom.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Dense with spiritual ideas.
- Narrative indirection: 50 out of 100
- Spiritual journey as parable.
- Symbolic density: 65 out of 100
- River, Om, ferryman carry weight.
- Ironic distance: 35 out of 100
- Hesse writes with earnest seeking.
- Resolution withholding: 40 out of 100
- Enlightenment achieved.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Linear spiritual journey.
How Siddhartha is regarded
Siddhartha holds a literary regard score of 82 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.