Tough

If on a winter’s night a traveler is tough.   Salman Rushdie said so.  In my search for some guidance about the book, I stumbled upon the website Shmoop.  The site’s tagline is “We speak student.”  Shmoop has character lists, quizes, and analysis–like many other sites.  What I had not seen before was a Tough-O-Meter: a calculator of literary difficulty.  Shmoop states:

We’ve got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you’ll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)

I loved it!  I was uncertain about its usefulness, but, boy was it entertaining.  I looked up several WEM novels and either gloated or dispaired about my literary “toughness”.

In case you were wondering, If on a winter’s night a traveler scores an eight.

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PS–Shmoop also has a steaminess rating.  Consider yourself warned; our next book, Song of Solomon, is rated R.