In the Absence of Men by Philippe Besson
Published 2003 · 176 pages · 48,400 words · about 3 hours at an average pace
How hard is In the Absence of Men to read?
In the Absence of Men 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: 55 out of 100
- Spare and exact.
- Sentence structure: 62 out of 100
- Long, controlled French sentences.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- Wartime Paris held at a reflective distance.
- Information density: 45 out of 100
- Short and unhurried.
- Narrative indirection: 45 out of 100
- A retrospective narrator shaping his own past.
- Symbolic density: 50 out of 100
- Restrained; the war carries the weight.
- Ironic distance: 42 out of 100
- Quiet distance between the man and the boy.
- Resolution withholding: 50 out of 100
- The ending withholds consolation.
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- Linear with letters inserted.
How In the Absence of Men is regarded
In the Absence of Men holds a literary regard score of 37 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.