And Then by Natsume Sōseki
Published 1909 · 75,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Psychological Fiction
How hard is And Then to read?
And Then scores 43 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: 50 out of 100
- Meiji-era social vocabulary and psychological terminology in translation. Daisuke's intellectual life introduces philosophical references.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- More psychologically complex sentences than Sanshiro. Interior monologue grows increasingly agitated as Daisuke approaches his crisis.
- Abstraction: 50 out of 100
- Daisuke's intellectual rationalizations for inaction create an abstract layer above the concrete social drama.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Focused psychological novel with a small cast. Dense in interior analysis, moderate in incident.
- Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
- Third-person narration tracks Daisuke's self-deceiving consciousness. The reader must see through his rationalizations.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- The color red, the lilies, Daisuke's idle lifestyle — recurring images externalize his psychological state.
- Ironic distance: 45 out of 100
- Soseki exposes the gap between Daisuke's philosophical self-justification and his emotional cowardice with controlled irony.
- Resolution withholding: 40 out of 100
- The novel ends at the moment of crisis rather than resolution. Daisuke has acted, but the consequences have barely begun.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Linear narrative building toward a single decision. Psychologically complex but structurally straightforward.
How And Then is regarded
And Then holds a literary regard score of 68 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.