The Novel of Formation by Jerome Hamilton Buckley
Published 1987 · 78,000 words · about 7 hours at an average pace · Essays & Criticism
How hard is The Novel of Formation to read?
The Novel of Formation scores 70 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: 60 out of 100
- Accessible literary-critical prose aimed at graduate students and general academic readers.
- Sentence structure: 54 out of 100
- Abstraction: 70 out of 100
- Balances broad genre claims with sustained attention to individual novels.
- Information density: 74 out of 100
- Covers twenty novels in depth while maintaining a clear through-argument.
- Narrative indirection: 12 out of 100
- Argument proceeds directly; structural schema is stated and applied transparently.
- Symbolic density: 12 out of 100
- Analyzes symbolism in primary texts but argues analytically rather than symbolically.
- Ironic distance: 100 out of 100
- Earnest, appreciative tone toward the tradition under study.
- Resolution withholding: 12 out of 100
- Conclusions are stated clearly at the end of each chapter.
- Structural complexity: 36 out of 100
- Steady linear argument with consistent structural schema applied across chapters.
How The Novel of Formation is regarded
The Novel of Formation holds a literary regard score of 87 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.