Patrimony by Philip Roth
Published 1991 · 55,000 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Memoir & Autobiography, Biography
How hard is Patrimony to read?
Patrimony scores 21 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. 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: 32 out of 100
- Roth writes plain, conversational American English, with Newark idiom and medical terms explained in scene. It sits near The Remains of the Day in clarity but with a more colloquial register.
- Sentence structure: 38 out of 100
- Sentences run clear and mostly short, with occasional longer reflective passages. Closer to Gatsby's balance than to any Jamesian hypotaxis.
- Abstraction: 35 out of 100
- Nearly everything is concrete: hospital rooms, bathroom floors, a father's habits. Reflections on inheritance and mortality come out of those scenes, as in Atomic Habits' use of examples.
- Information density: 28 out of 100
- A short book of simple scenes, with one thread and a small cast. The pace is comfortable, with little background to track.
How Patrimony is regarded
Patrimony holds a literary regard score of 67 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.
Prizes
- International Booker Prize 2011, awarded to Philip Roth