How Far Can You Go? by David Lodge
Published 1980 · 243 pages · 60,750 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Satire & Humor
How hard is How Far Can You Go? to read?
How Far Can You Go? scores 54 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. 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: 45 out of 100
- Lodge writes in educated but accessible English, sprinkling Catholic terminology (encyclicals, the rhythm method, the Pill) through a secular narrative voice. The vocabulary assumes familiarity with mid-century British culture, but context clarifies the references.
- Sentence structure: 48 out of 100
- Lodge varies his prose between straightforward storytelling and metafictional commentary. Sentences read smoothly when he's following characters, more playfully when he interrupts to analyze narrative conventions. The shifts keep readers alert without becoming difficult.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- The novel toggles between concrete scenes—nervous wedding nights, family dinners, confessional anxieties—and explicit discussion of religious and literary theory. Lodge brings ideas into conversation with lived experience, letting each illuminate the other.
- Information density: 55 out of 100
- Ten characters span three decades of social change, requiring readers to track multiple lives through Vatican II, sexual revolution, and British cultural transformation. Lodge covers substantial ground, but his episodic structure keeps each section manageable.
- Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
- Lodge tells his story directly, often stepping in as narrator to comment on what he's doing. The metafictional intrusions make the storytelling transparent—he flags his choices rather than concealing them. Characters' inner lives are exposed, not hidden.
- Symbolic density: 55 out of 100
- The novel works primarily through realistic social observation rather than symbolic patterning. Lodge's interest lies in how ideas—about sex, God, meaning—shape actual decisions. When symbolism appears, it serves satiric purpose rather than poetic depth.
- Ironic distance: 60 out of 100
- Lodge maintains affectionate irony toward his Catholic characters, gently mocking their anxieties while respecting their struggles. His authorial intrusions create additional distance, reminding readers they're watching a constructed narrative. Warmth and wit balance throughout.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- Lodge brings each character to a definite point by the novel's end—marriages, divorces, deaths, losses of faith. The epilogue surveys their fates with reportorial finality. Questions about meaning remain open, but individual storylines resolve.
- Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
- The novel tracks ten characters across thirty years, punctuated by authorial commentary on narrative technique. Lodge organizes chronologically by decade, making the structure easy to follow despite the ensemble cast. The metafictional frame is playful, not labyrinthine.
How How Far Can You Go? is regarded
How Far Can You Go? 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.