The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter

Published 1961 · 175 pages · 36,850 words · about 3 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is The Waters of Kronos to read?

The Waters of Kronos scores 59 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: 58 out of 100
Richter vocabulary.
Sentence structure: 58 out of 100
Clear prose.
Abstraction: 65 out of 100
Time, memory, loss.
Information density: 55 out of 100
Pennsylvania town.
Narrative indirection: 62 out of 100
Time travel frame.
Symbolic density: 62 out of 100
Waters, time, past.
Ironic distance: 52 out of 100
Nostalgic engagement.
Resolution withholding: 58 out of 100
Returns to present.
Structural complexity: 58 out of 100
Fantasy frame.

How The Waters of Kronos is regarded

The Waters of Kronos holds a literary regard score of 46 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

Conrad Richter