The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym
Published 1978 · 57,200 words · about 4 hours at an average pace
How hard is The Sweet Dove Died to read?
The Sweet Dove Died scores 54 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
- Precise, mannered English.
- Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
- Well-made sentences of moderate length.
- Abstraction: 50 out of 100
- Concrete social comedy with a cold centre.
- Information density: 52 out of 100
- Moderate.
- Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
- Free indirect style around a woman with no self-knowledge.
- Symbolic density: 48 out of 100
- The dove and the antiques carry quiet weight.
- Ironic distance: 75 out of 100
- Sustained irony at Leonora's expense.
- Resolution withholding: 55 out of 100
- The ending is a small, bleak accommodation.
- Structural complexity: 40 out of 100
- Linear.
How The Sweet Dove Died is regarded
The Sweet Dove Died holds a literary regard score of 54 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.