The Modern Novel: A Short Introduction by Jesse Matz
Published 2004 · 200 pages · 55,000 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Modern Novel: A Short Introduction to read?
The Modern Novel: A Short Introduction scores 46 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately 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: 58 out of 100
- Deliberately accessible introduction-level prose; technical terms are carefully defined.
- Sentence structure: 52 out of 100
- Abstraction: 70 out of 100
- Synthesizes large critical debates at a high level of generality without losing textual grounding.
- Information density: 75 out of 100
- Packs a large body of scholarship and primary texts into a short book efficiently.
- Narrative indirection: 14 out of 100
- Introductory format requires directness; argument is stated and immediately elaborated.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Uses some metaphors of light and depth but primarily argues analytically.
- Ironic distance: 14 out of 100
- Light irony when characterizing pre-modernist conventions the movement rejected.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Each section ends with a clear summary; the introduction format resists ambiguity.
- Structural complexity: 32 out of 100
- Organized by aesthetic problem rather than author or chronology; structure is clear and logical.
How The Modern Novel: A Short Introduction is regarded
The Modern Novel: A Short Introduction holds a literary regard score of 69 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.