Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
Published 1925 · 454 pages · 165,854 words · about 11 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Arrowsmith to read?
Arrowsmith scores 45 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: 42 out of 100
- Medical and scientific vocabulary throughout.
- Sentence structure: 40 out of 100
- Lewis's characteristic satirical prose.
- Abstraction: 45 out of 100
- Questions of science, integrity, and American life.
- Information density: 50 out of 100
- Dense with medical world and social satire.
- Narrative indirection: 40 out of 100
- Lewis presents through Martin's journey.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- Science, idealism, and corruption carry weight.
- Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
- Lewis's satire is sustained.
- Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
- Martin's withdrawal is ambiguous.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Follows Martin through medical career.
How Arrowsmith is regarded
Arrowsmith holds a literary regard score of 77 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.