According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge
Published 2001 · 272 pages · 68,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
How hard is According to Queeney to read?
According to Queeney scores 49 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
- 18th-century vocabulary and Johnson's distinctive voice.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- Period sentence structures, Johnsonian elaboration.
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- Questions of biography and interpretation.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Dense with 18th-century literary world.
- Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
- Multiple perspectives on Johnson; truth triangulated.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- Johnson's life and the Thrale circle carry weight.
- Ironic distance: 50 out of 100
- Bainbridge's stance toward sources is knowing.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Historical record remains incomplete.
- Structural complexity: 50 out of 100
- Multiple viewpoints on Johnson with epistolary elements.
How According to Queeney is regarded
According to Queeney holds a literary regard score of 61 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.