Beside the Ocean of Time by George Mackay Brown
Published 1994 · 175 pages · 137,414 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Beside the Ocean of Time to read?
Beside the Ocean of Time 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: 35 out of 100
- Clear Scottish prose with Orkney vocabulary.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Mackay Brown's lyrical, measured sentences.
- Abstraction: 50 out of 100
- Time, history, and community explored.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Dense with Orkney history and community.
- Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
- Time shifts and dreams interweave.
- Symbolic density: 60 out of 100
- The ocean, time, Orkney carry weight.
- Ironic distance: 35 out of 100
- Mackay Brown writes with evident love.
- Resolution withholding: 55 out of 100
- Time continues; community persists.
- Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
- Dream sequences spanning centuries.
How Beside the Ocean of Time is regarded
Beside the Ocean of Time holds a literary regard score of 62 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.