State of Wonder / The Song of Achilles / Painter of Silence by Ann Patchett
Published 2012 · 85,800 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Thriller & Suspense
How hard is State of Wonder / The Song of Achilles / Painter of Silence to read?
State of Wonder / The Song of Achilles / Painter of Silence 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: 35 out of 100
- Patchett writes clear contemporary prose with some pharmacological and Amazonian terms. It is closer to Beach Read than to the Jamesian density of The Golden Bowl.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Sentences are balanced and readable, with occasional long descriptive passages in the jungle. The structure is more varied than Beach Read but simpler than Anna Karenina.
- Abstraction: 42 out of 100
- The plot is concrete: a search, a journey and a research camp. Ethical questions about science and motherhood sit under the action, as in The Remains of the Day but less hidden.
- Information density: 38 out of 100
- The novel moves at a thriller's pace with manageable amounts of scientific and travel detail. It sits between Beach Read and The Great Gatsby.
- Narrative indirection: 40 out of 100
- Marina's third-person viewpoint tells readers most of what they need to know, though Swenson's motives and the Lakashi's secrets emerge slowly. Inference is lighter than in The Great Gatsby.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- The Amazon works as a Conradian place of moral testing, and the drug stands for scientific ambition. These symbols are clear and signposted rather than dense, in the range of 1984.
- Ironic distance: 32 out of 100
- Patchett writes with warmth and some dry humor, but Marina's story is earnest. It has more irony than Beach Read but far less than Lolita.
- Resolution withholding: 40 out of 100
- The plot resolves its main questions, though the ending leaves Marina's moral choices to weigh. It is more closed than The Great Gatsby's open meaning.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- The novel follows Marina in a mostly linear sequence of travel and discovery with brief flashbacks to her past. It is simpler than Midnight's Children and close to Beach Read.
How State of Wonder / The Song of Achilles / Painter of Silence is regarded
State of Wonder / The Song of Achilles / Painter of Silence holds a literary regard score of 51 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.