Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Published 2000 · 306 pages · 84,150 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
How hard is Chocolat to read?
Chocolat scores 35 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: 32 out of 100
- Harris uses clear, sensuous contemporary prose full of food and sensory words. It is far more accessible than The Great Gatsby and closer to Beach Read in plainness, with slightly richer description.
- Sentence structure: 33 out of 100
- Sentences are fluid and moderate in length, with first-person voices that stay easy to follow. Reynaud's chapters are more clipped and tense than Vianne's, but nothing approaches the demands of literary modernism.
- Abstraction: 36 out of 100
- The conflict between indulgence and denial is carried by concrete scenes in the shop, the church and the village. Ideas about faith and pleasure stay grounded in people, like the concrete treatment in To Kill a Mockingbird.
- Information density: 32 out of 100
- The plot moves at a comfortable pace with a few threads: the shop, the priest's campaign, and the villagers' private troubles. It is lighter than Gatsby and closer to Beach Read in density.
- Narrative indirection: 38 out of 100
- Two narrators state their feelings openly, and readers see each one's blind spots about the other. Reynaud's self-deception requires some reading against, but the book rarely withholds meaning.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- Chocolate, Lent and Easter, and the wind are clear, signposted symbols of appetite against restraint. They are more explicit than the Gatsby green light and operate as a fable.
- Ironic distance: 35 out of 100
- Harris plays Reynaud's sanctimony against the reader's view of his hidden motives, which adds some gentle irony. Vianne's voice is sincere and the tone is largely earnest.
- Resolution withholding: 28 out of 100
- The Easter climax resolves the main conflict clearly. Only Vianne's future and the ambiguity of her magic stay open, which is why a sequel could follow.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- The novel follows the calendar from Shrove Tuesday to Easter, with alternating narrators and occasional diary-like entries. The structure is linear and simple, like a more varied Beach Read.
How Chocolat is regarded
Chocolat 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.
Prizes
- Costa Novel Award 1999, shortlist