Ashes by Grazia Deledda

Published 1904 · 232 pages · 96,000 words · about 11 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is Ashes to read?

Ashes scores 41 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: 35 out of 100
Clear contemporary prose.
Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
Accessible sentences.
Abstraction: 40 out of 100
Questions emerge through story.
Information density: 40 out of 100
Efficiently conveyed.
Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
Shows rather than tells.
Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
Title carries weight.
Ironic distance: 40 out of 100
Balanced perspective.
Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100
Open ending.
Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
Straightforward structure.

How Ashes is regarded

Ashes 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.

About the author

Grazia Deledda