Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
Published 1943 · 559 pages · 130,500 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
How hard is Dragon's Teeth to read?
Dragon's Teeth scores 37 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: 40 out of 100
- Sinclair writes in accessible American prose of the 1940s. The vocabulary is clear, suited to wide readership.
- Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
- Direct, journalistic sentences that carry the plot forward. The prose is readable and efficient.
- Abstraction: 40 out of 100
- Grounded in the historical events of Nazi Germany is rise. Abstract political themes are explored through character and incident.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- The novel covers a vast historical canvas. Sinclair provides context for readers unfamiliar with the period.
- Narrative indirection: 35 out of 100
- Sinclair tells his story directly, following his protagonist through historical events. The message is clear.
- Symbolic density: 35 out of 100
- Sinclair works through incident rather than symbolism. The novel is political argument in fictional form.
- Ironic distance: 40 out of 100
- Sinclair is sympathies are clear. He writes with propagandistic purpose rather than ironic ambiguity.
- Resolution withholding: 35 out of 100
- The novel is part of a series following the same characters. This volume covers the rise of Hitler.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- A straightforward historical narrative following characters through major events. The structure serves clarity over complexity.
How Dragon's Teeth is regarded
Dragon's Teeth holds a literary regard score of 44 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.