Silence Among the Weapons by John Arden

Published 1982 · 343 pages · 85,750 words · about 10 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Science Fiction

How hard is Silence Among the Weapons to read?

Silence Among the Weapons scores 57 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: 55 out of 100
Classical references.
Sentence structure: 55 out of 100
Arden's dramatic verse.
Abstraction: 60 out of 100
War, power, complicity.
Information density: 55 out of 100
Ancient world.
Narrative indirection: 58 out of 100
Dramatic framework.
Symbolic density: 58 out of 100
Weapons, silence.
Ironic distance: 58 out of 100
Political critique.
Resolution withholding: 55 out of 100
Historical frame.
Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
Verse drama.

How Silence Among the Weapons is regarded

Silence Among the Weapons holds a literary regard score of 52 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.

About the author

John Arden