The American Novel and Its Tradition by Richard Chase
Published 1957 · 80,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The American Novel and Its Tradition to read?
The American Novel and Its Tradition scores 52 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
- Clear critical prose with a few key theoretical terms carefully introduced.
- Sentence structure: 50 out of 100
- Abstraction: 65 out of 100
- The novel/romance distinction is a formal-theoretical claim with broad cultural implications.
- Information density: 68 out of 100
- Compressed literary history with sustained close reading.
- Narrative indirection: 15 out of 100
- Direct thesis-driven argument throughout.
- Symbolic density: 15 out of 100
- Chase reads symbolism in his subjects without becoming symbolic himself.
- Ironic distance: 12 out of 100
- Confident and earnest critical voice.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- The argument reaches clear conclusions about the American tradition.
- Structural complexity: 32 out of 100
- Chronological survey organized around the romance thesis.
How The American Novel and Its Tradition is regarded
The American Novel and Its Tradition holds a literary regard score of 79 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.