Alec Wilder in Spite of Himself: A Life of the Composer
Published 1996 · 280 pages · 77,000 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Biography, Memoir & Autobiography
How hard is Alec Wilder in Spite of Himself: A Life of the Composer to read?
Alec Wilder in Spite of Himself: A Life of the Composer scores 24 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. 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: 32 out of 100
- A popular-press biography of a songwriter should use clear general prose with some musical terms, closer to the accessible diary and contemporary anchors than to literary fiction. The subject matter of songs and singers keeps the vocabulary plain.
- Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
- Biographical narration of a life in chronological order calls for measured, readable sentences. Nothing suggests nested or experimental syntax, in the manner of The Remains of the Day's clear formal prose at most.
- Abstraction: 33 out of 100
- The book is built on a concrete life: Rochester childhood, songs, singers and a major study of American songwriters. Some discussion of musical craft adds a little abstraction, in the way Atomic Habits grounds ideas in examples.
- Information density: 40 out of 100
- A 77,000-word biography covering a whole career, many songs and relationships with figures like Sinatra and Mabel Mercer carries moderate factual load. It is paced for general readers, not scholars.
How Alec Wilder in Spite of Himself: A Life of the Composer is regarded
Alec Wilder in Spite of Himself: A Life of the Composer holds a literary regard score of 29 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.