How long does it take to read Berlin Alexanderplatz?
Die Geschichtge vom Franz Biberkopf
Alfred Döblin
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin takes about 9 hours 42 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 9 hours 42 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1929. 529 pages, about 145,475 words.
20 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 16 hours 10 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 9 hours 42 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 6 hours 4 minutes |
The page count is the median across 69 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
"The inspiration for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's epic film and that The Guardian named one of the "Top 100 Books of All Time," Berlin Alexanderplatz is considered one of the most important works of the Weimar Republic and twentieth century literature. Franz Biberkopf, pimp and petty thief, has just finished serving a term in prison for murdering his girlfriend. He's on his own in Weimar Berlin with its lousy economy and frontier morality, but Franz is determined to turn over new leaf, get ahead, make an honest man of himself, and so on and so forth. He hawks papers, chases girls, needs and bleeds money, gets mixed up in spite of himself in various criminal and political schemes, and when he tries to back out of them, it's at the cost of an arm. This is only the beginning of our modern everyman's multiplying misfortunes, but though Franz is more dupe than hustler, in the end, well, persistence is rewarded and things might be said to work out. Just like in a novel. Lucky Franz.Berlin, Alexanderplatz is one of great twentieth-century novels. Taking off from the work of Dos Passos and Joyce, Doblin depicts modern life in all its shocking violence, corruption, splendor, and horror. Michael Hofmann, celebrated for his translations of Joseph Roth and Franz Kafka, has prepared a new version, the first in over 75 years, in which Doblin's sublime and scurrilous masterpiece comes alive in English as never before"-- "Franz Biberkopf, pimp and petty thief, has just finished serving a term in prison for murdering his girlfriend. He's on his own in Weimar Berlin with its lousy economy and frontier morality, but Franz is determined to turn over new leaf, get ahead, make an honest man of himself, and so on and so forth. He hawks papers, chases girls, needs and bleeds money, gets mixed up in various criminal and political schemes in spite of himself, and when he tries to back out of them, it's at the cost of an arm. This is only the beginning of our modern everyman's multiplying…
Subjects: German fiction, Fiction, History, Berlin (germany), fiction, Fiction, historical, general, Popular culture
