The Weird Tale by S.T. Joshi
Published 1990 · 80,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Weird Tale to read?
The Weird Tale scores 54 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. 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: 64 out of 100
- Literary-critical vocabulary with some philosophical terminology; generally accessible.
- Sentence structure: 57 out of 100
- Abstraction: 74 out of 100
- Connects metaphysical arguments to specific textual features.
- Information density: 75 out of 100
- Dense with biographical, bibliographic, and textual information.
- Narrative indirection: 14 out of 100
- Argument is stated directly with some indirection in philosophical reconstructions.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Analyzes the cosmic and symbolic dimensions of weird fiction carefully.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Earnest scholarly advocacy for writers Joshi considers undervalued.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Analytical conclusions are clearly stated at chapter ends.
- Structural complexity: 36 out of 100
- Organized author by author with a consistent analytical method across chapters.
How The Weird Tale is regarded
The Weird Tale holds a literary regard score of 79 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.