The Epistolary Novel: Representations of Consciousness by Linda S. Kauffman
Published 1986 · 95,000 words · about 8 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Epistolary Novel: Representations of Consciousness to read?
The Epistolary Novel: Representations of Consciousness scores 68 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: 65 out of 100
- Feminist critical vocabulary layered over careful textual analysis.
- Sentence structure: 62 out of 100
- Abstraction: 72 out of 100
- Theoretical framework drawn from gender studies and narrative theory.
- Information density: 74 out of 100
- Closely argued with extensive textual evidence.
- Narrative indirection: 14 out of 100
- Direct argument though the subject is forms of indirection.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Primarily analytical.
- Ironic distance: 15 out of 100
- Occasional critical irony in relation to patriarchal conventions analyzed.
- Resolution withholding: 14 out of 100
- Arguments are resolved at each chapter end.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Historical arc from classical antecedents through 18th-century peak with a theoretical frame.
How The Epistolary Novel: Representations of Consciousness is regarded
The Epistolary Novel: Representations of Consciousness holds a literary regard score of 58 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.