The Magician by Christopher Zeischegg
Published 2020 · 408 pages · 112,200 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is The Magician to read?
The Magician scores 38 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
- Nothing in the record shows the book's prose style. At 112,200 words, an English-language novel of this length most often uses ordinary contemporary vocabulary, closer to Beach Read than to Ulysses, so a moderate-low placement is the safest estimate.
- Sentence structure: 40 out of 100
- No evidence describes the sentence structure. A contemporary English novel of this length typically uses clear, conventional syntax, so the score sits near the accessible middle, above Beach Read and below The Great Gatsby.
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- The subject matter is unknown, so there is no basis for judging how philosophical the book is. A neutral placement between concrete popular fiction like It Ends with Us and idea-driven novels like The Remains of the Day is the fairest estimate.
- Information density: 40 out of 100
- No information about plot threads or subject matter is available. A novel of 112,200 words is a mid-length work, so the score sits between the light density of Beach Read and the compressed clarity of The Great Gatsby.
- Narrative indirection: 42 out of 100
- Nothing shows how the narration works, whether direct or inferential. Without evidence, the estimate stays in the accessible range, near To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Symbolic density: 35 out of 100
- The title alone gives no reliable evidence of motifs or allegory, and nothing else in the record describes them. A modest default sits between Beach Read and The Remains of the Day.
- Ironic distance: 35 out of 100
- No evidence shows whether the book is earnest or satirical. The score defaults to the accessible range, near It Ends with Us.
- Resolution withholding: 35 out of 100
- Nothing indicates whether the ending is closed or open. Most commercial and mainstream novels resolve their plots, so the estimate sits between Beach Read and Beloved.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- No information describes the timeline or point of view. A default of linear, conventional structure places it between Beach Read and The Great Gatsby.
How The Magician is regarded
The Magician holds a literary regard score of 17 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.