How long does it take to read Assommoir?
Assommoir by Émile Zola takes about 8 hours 23 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 23 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1870. 457 pages, about 125,675 words.
17 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 13 hours 58 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 23 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 14 minutes |
The page count is the median across 83 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
L'Assommoir is a study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris. Gervaise Macquart, who is featured briefly in the first novel in the series, La Fortune des Rougon, is running away to Paris with her shiftless lover Lantier to work as a washerwoman in a hot, busy laundry. After Lantier leaves her, she swears to never fall in love again. Until she meets Coupeau, a teetotal roofer and loving partner, whom she marries. Gervaise is enjoying the highs and lives her dream life as she opens her own laundry and their daughter Anna (nicknamed Nana) is born. Later Coupeau suffers an injury und gives up to the alcoholism. From that moment their life goes downward, experiencing several embarassing failures, ending up with irreparable debt and irrecoverable tragedies.
Subjects: Fiction, Married women, poverty, Working class women, Social life and customs, alcoholism
