The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction by Frank Kermode
Published 1967 · 72,000 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction to read?
The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction scores 67 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: 65 out of 100
- Learned vocabulary drawn from theology, philosophy, and literary theory without condescension.
- Sentence structure: 60 out of 100
- Abstraction: 78 out of 100
- Argues a general theory of human meaning-making through narrative at a high level of abstraction.
- Information density: 76 out of 100
- Six dense lectures that build a cumulative theory of narrative, time, and ending.
- Narrative indirection: 20 out of 100
- Kermode's argument advances by digression and recurrence rather than linear logic.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Tick-tock, the Apocalypse, and the clock as recurring symbolic structures.
- Ironic distance: 16 out of 100
- Sustained irony about the human tendency to believe in endings that never come.
- Resolution withholding: 18 out of 100
- The theory of deferred endings is enacted in the book's own structure.
- Structural complexity: 35 out of 100
- Six interconnected lectures that build a single argument through historical and textual detours.
How The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction is regarded
The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction holds a literary regard score of 48 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.