Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr
Published 1988 · 216 pages · 75,276 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is Solitude: A Return to the Self to read?
Solitude: A Return to the Self scores 29 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. 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: 52 out of 100
- Storr draws on psychoanalytic and psychiatric vocabulary throughout — transference, introjection, object-relations, REM sleep, sensory deprivation — but defines and contextualizes each term in accessible prose. The register is that of a literate clinician writing for an educated general audience, closer to a serious journal essay than to academic jargon.
- Sentence structure: 42 out of 100
- Sentences are well-formed and clear, deploying subordinate clauses in the tradition of careful British academic prose without Jamesian hypotaxis or Proustian subordination. Paragraphs run long and develop ideas methodically, but individual sentences rarely demand re-reading. The syntax is more demanding than popular nonfiction and less demanding than serious literary fiction.
- Abstraction: 60 out of 100
- The book alternates between abstract psychological argument — attachment theory, the capacity to be alone, the nature of individuation — and vivid concrete case studies of Beethoven, Goya, Admiral Byrd, Dr. Edith Bone, and Dostoevsky. Storr consistently grounds each theoretical claim in biography or research data, landing the book midway between a philosophy lecture and a collection of portraits.
- Information density: 62 out of 100
- Each chapter covers substantial ground, weaving together psychoanalytic theory, ethology, neuroscience (REM sleep research), cultural history, biography, and literary criticism within a few dozen pages. References to Bowlby, Winnicott, Freud, Jung, Lorenz, and dozens of historical figures create dense intellectual texture. Not encyclopedic, but considerably richer than popular psychology.
- Narrative indirection: 18 out of 100
- This is a direct discursive argument. Storr states his thesis — that solitude is as essential to human flourishing as intimacy — and argues it straightforwardly with evidence and example. The reader is never required to infer meaning or assemble fragmented perspectives; the author's position is explicit throughout.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- The text operates at a conceptual and analytical level, not a symbolic one. While Storr discusses symbolic content in the works he examines (Wagner's operas, Keats's odes), the prose itself carries argument rather than imagery. There are no sustained metaphors or allegorical structures for the reader to decode.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Storr is sincere throughout. He challenges psychiatric orthodoxy directly rather than through irony, and his clinical manner is earnest and engaged. Occasional dry wit surfaces when discussing prison reform or psychiatric fashions, but the book does not require the reader to recalibrate between surface and intended meaning.
- Resolution withholding: 22 out of 100
- Each chapter builds to a clear conclusion, and the book as a whole resolves its central argument: solitude is a legitimate and valuable human need, not a deficiency. Some philosophical openness remains about the nature of mystical experience and individuation, but Storr does not withhold resolution as a rhetorical strategy.
- Structural complexity: 15 out of 100
- The book proceeds chapter by chapter in a linear argument, moving from attachment theory through voluntary solitude, enforced isolation, imagination, and creativity to the lives of specific artists and thinkers. There is no nonlinear chronology, no shifting perspectives, no experimental form. The structure is that of a well-organized discursive essay.
How Solitude: A Return to the Self is regarded
Solitude: A Return to the Self holds a literary regard score of 36 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.