The Limits of the Novel: Evolutions of a Form from Chaucer to the Present by Timothy O'Brien
Published 2018 · 80,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Limits of the Novel: Evolutions of a Form from Chaucer to the Present to read?
The Limits of the Novel: Evolutions of a Form from Chaucer to the Present scores 65 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: 64 out of 100
- Careful critical vocabulary, accessible without sacrificing precision.
- Sentence structure: 60 out of 100
- Abstraction: 72 out of 100
- Sustained engagement with formal questions at a theoretical level.
- Information density: 73 out of 100
- Dense with literary-historical and formal argument.
- Narrative indirection: 18 out of 100
- Direct academic argument throughout.
- Symbolic density: 13 out of 100
- Analytical.
- Ironic distance: 16 out of 100
- Measured critical engagement with occasional wit.
- Resolution withholding: 20 out of 100
- The novel's future boundaries are left appropriately open.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Organized thematically around formal pressures and responses.
How The Limits of the Novel: Evolutions of a Form from Chaucer to the Present is regarded
The Limits of the Novel: Evolutions of a Form from Chaucer to the Present holds a literary regard score of 65 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.