Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
Published 2014 · 35,000 words · about 2 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism, Feminist Literature, Nonfiction
How hard is Men Explain Things to Me to read?
Men Explain Things to Me scores 33 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: 28 out of 100
- Clear, literary vocabulary. Accessible and precise.
- Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
- Elegant essay prose. Well-constructed sentences with rhetorical force.
- Abstraction: 28 out of 100
- Arguments grounded in specific anecdotes and cases.
- Information density: 42 out of 100
- Dense with argument and example despite the short length.
- Narrative indirection: 100 out of 100
- Essay-by-essay structure. Each builds from anecdote to argument.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- Mansplaining as synecdoche for patriarchal power. The continuum of silence to violence.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Solnit's controlled anger carries a sharp, ironic edge.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Solnit diagnoses the problem more completely than she prescribes solutions.
- Structural complexity: 15 out of 100
- Seven standalone essays. Brief and focused.
How Men Explain Things to Me is regarded
Men Explain Things to Me holds a literary regard score of 46 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.