Such Times by Christopher Coe
Published 1993 · 87,175 words · about 7 hours at an average pace
How hard is Such Times to read?
Such Times 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
- Precise, mannered vocabulary.
- Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
- Long, circling sentences.
- Abstraction: 55 out of 100
- Concrete loss handled at a reflective remove.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Moderate.
- Narrative indirection: 62 out of 100
- A narrator who avoids the deaths he is describing.
- Symbolic density: 52 out of 100
- The restaurants and the routines carry weight.
- Ironic distance: 58 out of 100
- Distance between his poise and his grief.
- Resolution withholding: 62 out of 100
- No consolation is offered.
- Structural complexity: 55 out of 100
- A retrospective that keeps doubling back.
How Such Times is regarded
Such Times holds a literary regard score of 34 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.