Correction by Thomas Bernhard
Published 2003 · 69,575 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Correction to read?
Correction scores 41 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: 45 out of 100
- Nothing in the record shows the book's prose, so the score stays at a middling estimate. A novel of about 70,000 words in English sits between the accessible contemporary fiction of Beach Read and the more demanding literary register of The Great Gatsby.
- Sentence structure: 45 out of 100
- No evidence shows how the sentences are built. A mid-length English novel suggests ordinary syntax, closer to The Remains of the Day than to Ulysses.
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- The record gives no subject for the book, so abstraction stays near the middle. It sits between concrete narrative like It Ends with Us and the emotional abstraction of The Remains of the Day.
- Information density: 42 out of 100
- At about 70,000 words, the book is of average length for a novel. Nothing shows heavy apparatus or encyclopedic range, so density sits near the lower middle, near The Great Gatsby.
- Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
- Nothing known about the narration or plot shows how much readers must infer. The score takes a neutral midpoint between direct fiction like Beach Read and implication-heavy novels like The Great Gatsby.
- Symbolic density: 38 out of 100
- No evidence shows motifs or allegory in this book. A neutral estimate sits between the minimal symbolism of Beach Read and the restrained symbolism of The Remains of the Day.
- Ironic distance: 35 out of 100
- Nothing about tone or narration is documented. The score stays at an accessible midpoint, between sincere fiction like It Ends with Us and the ironic distance of The Great Gatsby.
- Resolution withholding: 42 out of 100
- Nothing shows how the book ends. A neutral estimate sits between genre-resolved books like Beach Read and the open meaning of The Great Gatsby.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- No evidence describes the book's structure. A single mid-length novel suggests moderate structure, between the linear form of Beach Read and the retrospection of The Great Gatsby.
How Correction is regarded
Correction 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.