Running in the Family by Michael Ondaatje
Published 1982 · 45,000 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Memoir & Autobiography, Nonfiction
How hard is Running in the Family to read?
Running in the Family scores 32 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
- Poetic, literary prose with Sri Lankan terminology.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Abstraction: 30 out of 100
- Concrete memoir with meditation on memory and myth.
- Information density: 42 out of 100
- Rich with sensory detail, family anecdote, and tropical atmosphere.
- Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
- Collage structure. Fragments, poems, and dreams rather than linear narrative.
- Symbolic density: 35 out of 100
- Sri Lanka, the father's drinking, and tropical nature all serve as symbols.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Ondaatje writes with affection and wonder rather than irony.
- Resolution withholding: 25 out of 100
- The father remains elusive. Memory itself resists resolution.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- Collage of prose, poetry, photographs, and dreams.
How Running in the Family is regarded
Running in the Family holds a literary regard score of 55 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.