Usefulness of Flesh Reading Ease test for novels

[Katsunami]

The Count Pages plugin for calibre has the possibility to calculate the "Flesh Reading Ease" score for a book. I have run it on my library, and came to some weird conclusions.

The most difficult book in my library (with a big distance) would be "The Silmarillion", scoring 69.1. Wikipedia says:

"60-70: Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students."

As someone who reads at least a moderate amount of books per year (depending on the time I have), I don't consider The Silmarillion extremely difficult, but I still think it's beyond a 13 year old. Most people I know who liked Lord of the Rings didn't read The Silmarillion because they did consider it difficult. Some of those people read it in English, others read a Dutch translation. I've read both, BTW.

Question: is The Silmarillion indeed much less difficult than most people (that I know) seem to think?

The easiest book in my library was "A Dance With Dragons", scoring 98.1. Wikipedia says:

"90-100: Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student."

Question: Does George R.R. Martin, who is sometimes called "The American Tolkien" write 1000 page books that can be understood by toddlers (almost...)?

Is this "Flesh Reading Ease" score of any use to determine if a book is difficult?

I have a feeling that it isn't, because it only takes total sentences, words, length of senteces and number of syllables into account, assuming that a text with longer senteces and longer words is more difficult. That certainly does not need to be the case. A text can have very short sentences and words, but if it's written in 17th century English, it may be very difficult to read.

[arjaybe]

It's a test meant for educators, so they can evaluate books for their students. Flesch does the mechanics, its users are expected to do the content.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Question: Does George R.R. Martin, who is sometimes called "The American Tolkien" write 1000 page books that can be understood by toddlers (almost...)?

Yes...

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The Count Pages plugin for calibre has the possibility to calculate the "Flesh Reading Ease" score for a book. I have run it on my library, and came to some weird conclusions.

The most difficult book in my library (with a big distance) would be "The Silmarillion", scoring 69.1. Wikipedia says:

"60-70: Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students."

As someone who reads at least a moderate amount of books per year (depending on the time I have), I don't consider The Silmarillion extremely difficult, but I still think it's beyond a 13 year old. Most people I know who liked Lord of the Rings didn't read The Silmarillion because they did consider it difficult. Some of those people read it in English, others read a Dutch translation. I've read both, BTW.

Question: is The Silmarillion indeed much less difficult than most people (that I know) seem to think?

The easiest book in my library was "A Dance With Dragons", scoring 98.1. Wikipedia says:

"90-100: Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student."

Question: Does George R.R. Martin, who is sometimes called "The American Tolkien" write 1000 page books that can be understood by toddlers (almost...)?

Is this "Flesh Reading Ease" score of any use to determine if a book is difficult?

I have a feeling that it isn't, because it only takes total sentences, words, length of senteces and number of syllables into account, assuming that a text with longer senteces and longer words is more difficult. That certainly does not need to be the case. A text can have very short sentences and words, but if it's written in 17th century English, it may be very difficult to read.

I found games of throne an easier read than the lord of the ring, or the Silmarillion for sure.
Maybe because it's a more modern english.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

The most difficult book in my library (with a big distance) would be "The Silmarillion", scoring 69.1. Wikipedia says:

"60-70: Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students."

So would this have something to do with why all the interesting sci- fi and fantasy books are branded as "young adult," and the adults' section is full of litfic?

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I have run it on my library, and came to some weird conclusions.
<snip>
Is this "Flesh Reading Ease" score of any use to determine if a book is difficult?

I have a feeling that it isn't, because it only takes total sentences, words, length of senteces and number of syllables into account, assuming that a text with longer senteces and longer words is more difficult. That certainly does not need to be the case. A text can have very short sentences and words, but if it's written in 17th century English, it may be very difficult to read.

I have my doubts too - out of interest I've just run it on a few books and it's giving a score of 74 to Lautreamont's les chants de Maldoror - so according to the scale an 11 to 13 year old should understand it which I somehow doubt but then I have now idea how (if?) it can work things out on non-English books. Currently running it on the rest of my library just for kicks will take some time though...

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by teh603

So would this have something to do with why all the interesting sci- fi and fantasy books are branded as "young adult," and the adults' section is full of litfic?

It could be. The Silmarillion is not a difficult book, but it certainly is not easy either. Some other books I thought easy and expected to end up somewhere in the higher 80's, had an unexpectedly low (=difficult) score. The Sword of Shannara is one of those. It scored 77, and is one of the more "difficult" books in my library

Some of the Dungeons and Dragons / Forgotten Realms stuff that I read as a break from "serious" (ahum) Fantasy actually scored in the low 80's rather often. The "serious" Fantasy often was in the higher 80's with George R.R. Martin (who is generally considered to be "serious stuff") scoring 98.1. (Almost a clean hundred. What would that mean? Easily understood by mentally handicapped people?)

Summarized, my entire library as it is at this point can be understood by 15 year olds, with a large part being easily readable for an under 11 year old. Thereore I must go look for some much more difficult books, or this FRE is useless.

I think it's the second, because there are books in there that I *know* will make a 15 year old cry if they had to read them. I've deleted the FRE-column from the database.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I've deleted the FRE-column from the database.

I think it's the best thing to do, it's finished running on my library and frankly I find the results rather puzzling

My books range all the way from 33 for Bohumil Hrabal Too Loud a Solitude, 38 for Daniel Defoe A Journal of the Plague Year to 102 for Atiq Rahimi Earth and Ashes

Using the 69 score reference you gave for the Silmarillion, at that level, I have the kindle user guide and the Tales from the Arabian Nights would allegedly be slightly more difficult at 66 than the Silmarillion...

Also Poe is at around 60 and I would have expected that to score much higher as it's such an easy read. Lovecraft is at 60 too and Oscar Wilde 73.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Apparently Joyce's Ulysses is readily understandable by most sixth graders.

Perhaps I should have read it earlier in my life.

[OtterBooks]

could be due to Tolkien's heavy use of made-up language, exotic names with accent marks etc, much of which the program can't recognize.

[Sabardeyn]

Interesting discussion. I have not used reading level functions yet, but I had been considering adding it at some point, to suggest books for when I felt like lighter reading material. It is very interesting to see that the results do not seem to be accurate.

I know some of the book titles mentioned with questionable scores and I agree that they don't seem correct. I would be rather amazed to see some of these titles in the hands of an 11 year old, let alone actually seeing them read (and comprehend) these stories.

[arjaybe]

Don't expect Flesch to do what it's not intended to do. If you're going to use it, remember its intended purpose. Refer to my earlier post in this thread.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...11&postcount=2

In my own case, when I write fiction I get a FRE score in the seventies or eighties. When I write an article it's in the fifties.

[zoorakhan]

I use Gunning Fox index along with my reading speed for calculating time required to complete the book. From what I have seen, it is usually correct. (except for plant related books which are regarded as too hard). Almost all the young adult books are green i.e. less than 8 or near universal reading and all philosophy book are red i.e. more than 12 meaning 18 years and more.