So Much Blue by Percival Everett
Published 2017 · 60,000 words · about 4 hours at an average pace · Fiction, Literary Fiction
How hard is So Much Blue to read?
So Much Blue scores 40 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: 40 out of 100
- Art terminology is used precisely but accessibly. The vocabulary is varied but never ostentatious, reflecting Kevin's practical intelligence.
- Sentence structure: 35 out of 100
- Clear, measured prose with shorter sentences than some of Everett's other work. The three-timeline structure does not complicate the sentence-level reading.
- Abstraction: 40 out of 100
- Grounded in the physical details of painting, travel, and domestic life. Abstract themes about art and secrecy emerge from concrete experience.
- Information density: 40 out of 100
- Three timelines compressed into a short novel. Each thread is economically rendered, with key scenes doing heavy lifting.
- Narrative indirection: 50 out of 100
- The three timelines withhold their connections until late in the novel. Kevin's narration is selective about what he reveals and when.
- Symbolic density: 45 out of 100
- The color blue connects the timelines symbolically. The hidden painting functions as a symbol for the hidden self. The Salvadoran landscape carries political and emotional weight.
- Ironic distance: 25 out of 100
- One of Everett's least ironic novels. Kevin's narration is reflective and sincere, though his secrecy introduces a structural irony.
- Resolution withholding: 40 out of 100
- The Salvadoran secret is eventually revealed, but the painting's meaning remains private. Kevin's marriage is neither resolved nor destroyed.
- Structural complexity: 45 out of 100
- Three interwoven timelines that gradually converge. The structure is the novel's primary formal feature, requiring the reader to hold multiple threads simultaneously.
How So Much Blue is regarded
So Much Blue holds a literary regard score of 54 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.