The Last Man by Mary Shelley

How hard is The Last Man to read?

The Last Man scores 71 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very 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: 75 out of 100

Mary Shelley employs an elevated 19th-century literary vocabulary, featuring words like "pellucid," "hypaethric," "asseverations," and "consanguinity." The text is rich with classical allusions (e.g., "Cumaean Sibyl," "Galatea," "Oedipus") and formal diction, requiring a strong command of English to fully appreciate. While not employing invented language, its consistent high register places it significantly above contemporary fiction.

Sentence structure: 78 out of 100

Sentences are frequently long and intricate, characterized by extensive subordination, multiple clauses, and parenthetical insertions. This complex hypotaxis demands sustained attention from the reader to parse meaning, often requiring re-reading to fully grasp the flow of thought. The prose, while not reaching the extremes of James or Faulkner, consistently presents a high grammatical challenge.

Abstraction: 72 out of 100

Beyond its narrative of love and political intrigue, the novel deeply engages with philosophical and theoretical concepts concerning human nature, fate, ambition, and societal structures. Characters frequently express abstract reflections on life and morality, such as Adrian's speeches on human will and happiness, elevating the text beyond a purely concrete story. This consistent probing of meaning requires intellectual engagement with its underlying ideas.

Information density: 70 out of 100

The text is packed with interwoven plotlines, a detailed political backdrop (republican England, Greek wars), and complex character relationships, all presented alongside extensive internal monologues and philosophical digressions. Readers must process a high volume of conceptual, emotional, and contextual information per page, demanding continuous attention to follow the intricate developments.

Narrative indirection: 68 out of 100

The narrator, Lionel Verney, explicitly states his feelings and interpretations, often explaining characters' motivations directly. However, the entire narrative is framed as Lionel's 'deciphering' and 'modeling' of fragmented Sibylline leaves, explicitly stating he 'added links' and 'model[ed] the work into a consistent form.' This meta-narrative device requires readers to infer the degree of the narrator's subjective shaping of the 'truths contained in these poetic rhapsodies,' placing a significant burden of interpretation on the reader beyond simple plot comprehension, similar to the bias in The Great Gatsby (65) but with an added layer of textual construction.

Symbolic density: 72 out of 100

The text is rich with symbolic elements, beginning with the Sibylline leaves themselves, representing fragmented prophecy and the weight of history. Characters like Adrian embody an almost Christ-like ideal, while Raymond symbolizes ambition and political corruption. Settings such as England as a 'vast and well-manned ship' or Perdita's 'vase brimful of despair' imbue the literal with deeper, often allegorical, meaning, placing it well above To Kill a Mockingbird (45) and closer to Heart of Darkness (65) or The Great Gatsby (75) in its consistent use of symbolic language and character archetypes.

Ironic distance: 70 out of 100

A notable ironic distance exists through the narrator's often-explicit judgments and the tragic fates of characters, which implicitly critique societal ambition and human folly. Lionel's retrospective self-awareness of his 'savage revengeful heart' and his 'mad idolatry' of Idris introduces a degree of self-irony. The meta-narrative framing, where the narrator questions the 'present form' of the Sibylline verses, also creates a subtle authorial detachment from the literal truth of the story.

Resolution withholding: 78 out of 100

The excerpt concludes with profound personal despair for Perdita and Raymond, and an overarching sense of impending 'misery and woeful change' for the characters' future, explicitly foreshadowed by the narrator. Adrian's recurring illness and the precariousness of the political landscape further contribute to a lack of definitive closure. This resistance to a conventional happy ending, coupled with the novel's title implying ultimate doom, creates a strong sense of unresolved tragedy.

Structural complexity: 60 out of 100

The narrative maintains a first-person, largely chronological perspective from Lionel Verney, but its primary structural complexity arises from the meta-fictional 'Introduction.' Here, the narrator describes the text as his own 'deciphering' and 'modeling' of 'scattered and unconnected' Sibylline leaves, explicitly acknowledging his role in shaping the story's form. While lacking the radical POV shifts or fragmented chronology of works like Ulysses (98), this self-aware framing device adds a significant layer of formal experimentation.

How The Last Man is regarded

The Last Man holds a literary regard score of 57 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.

About the author

Mary Shelley