Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby
Published 1969 · 255 pages · 97,223 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction
How hard is Something to Answer For to read?
Something to Answer For scores 61 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: 48 out of 100
- Newby uses standard mid-century British literary vocabulary with period-specific terms (gallabieh, arrack, ouzo, gharry) and Middle Eastern place names. The language is plain and conversational rather than ornate — Townrow's inner voice runs in everyday English. Readers encounter unfamiliar words from the Egyptian setting but can follow from context.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- Sentences run from short, punchy declarations to medium-length compound structures. Newby favors parataxis — short clauses joined by 'and' or periods — over deep subordination. The prose moves briskly with dialogue-heavy sections interspersed with Townrow's interior monologue, closer to Graham Greene than Henry James.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- The novel grounds its ideas in concrete scenes — a bar in Port Said, a dinghy on Lake Menzaleh, a rooftop during the bombardment — but regularly slides into Townrow's philosophical musings on identity, guilt, forgiveness, and British complicity. These abstractions stay tethered to physical experience rather than floating free.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- The novel packs historical context (Suez Crisis, British withdrawal, Nasser's nationalization) alongside a personal plot involving inheritance, identity fraud, and romantic entanglement. Multiple characters carry political and thematic weight. The density is moderate — events accumulate steadily rather than overwhelming the reader.
- Narrative indirection: 68 out of 100
- Townrow is an unreliable perceiver whose fevers, drinking, and sunstroke blur the line between event and hallucination. The reader must sort genuine plot developments from Townrow's fantasies — he sees Elie alive in a cafe, imagines conversations with the dead Amin, and cannot be sure Leah was ever at the Greek Club. Meaning emerges through inference rather than statement.
- Symbolic density: 58 out of 100
- The coffin voyage to Beirut, the dead saint's fingers, the sheikh's tomb, and Townrow's repeated 'deaths' and 'rebirths' carry symbolic weight without becoming allegorical. The Suez Canal itself operates as a symbol of British imperial self-deception. Symbols are present but woven into realistic texture rather than foregrounded.
- Ironic distance: 65 out of 100
- Newby maintains steady ironic distance from Townrow, who declares himself reborn and moral while scheming to inherit Mrs. Khoury's estate. The gap between Townrow's self-image as a reformed, loving man and his actual conduct as a petty crook provides the novel's central irony. The Greek travel agent's speech about British self-delusion functions as a thesis the novel dramatizes without endorsing.
- Resolution withholding: 70 out of 100
- The novel resists closure on its central questions: Is Elie really dead? Did Townrow genuinely transform on the lake? What actually happened versus what Townrow hallucinated? The Suez Crisis provides historical structure but Townrow's personal arc remains deliberately ambiguous — his declarations of love and moral renewal coexist with unchanged behavior.
- Structural complexity: 62 out of 100
- The narrative jumps between London backstory, Rome airport, Port Said arrival, lake wandering, and the Suez bombardment without clear chronological markers. Dream sequences merge with waking scenes. Townrow's perspective is the only viewpoint but his reliability degrades as the novel progresses, forcing the reader to construct a timeline from scattered references.
How Something to Answer For is regarded
Something to Answer For holds a literary regard score of 35 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.