Quote:
Originally Posted by Katsunami
The Count Pages plugin for calibre has the possibility to calculate the "Flesh Reading Ease" score for a book. I have run it on my library, and came to some weird conclusions.
The most difficult book in my library (with a big distance) would be "The Silmarillion", scoring 69.1. Wikipedia says:
"60-70: Easily understood by 13- to 15-year-old students."
As someone who reads at least a moderate amount of books per year (depending on the time I have), I don't consider The Silmarillion extremely difficult, but I still think it's beyond a 13 year old. Most people I know who liked Lord of the Rings didn't read The Silmarillion because they did consider it difficult. Some of those people read it in English, others read a Dutch translation. I've read both, BTW.
Question: is The Silmarillion indeed much less difficult than most people (that I know) seem to think?
The easiest book in my library was "A Dance With Dragons", scoring 98.1. Wikipedia says:
"90-100: Easily understood by an average 11-year-old student."
Question: Does George R.R. Martin, who is sometimes called "The American Tolkien" write 1000 page books that can be understood by toddlers (almost...)?
Is this "Flesh Reading Ease" score of any use to determine if a book is difficult?
I have a feeling that it isn't, because it only takes total sentences, words, length of senteces and number of syllables into account, assuming that a text with longer senteces and longer words is more difficult. That certainly does not need to be the case. A text can have very short sentences and words, but if it's written in 17th century English, it may be very difficult to read. |
I found games of throne an easier read than the lord of the ring, or the Silmarillion for sure.
Maybe because it's a more modern english.