How long does it take to read Either/or?
Either/or by Søren Kierkegaard takes about 4 hours 28 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 28 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1843. 244 pages, about 67,100 words.
9 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 7 hours 27 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 28 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 48 minutes |
The page count is the median across 51 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Either/Or is Søren Kierkegaard's first published work, issued in 1843 as two volumes supposedly gathered by an editor named Victor Eremita. It sets out a theory of human existence by contrasting two ways of living. The aesthetic life pursues pleasure for its own sake, while the ethical life rests on commitment, responsibility and marriage. Each outlook is voiced by an invented author, whose prose style matches his view: short, poetic essays on one side, long argumentative letters on the other. Together they pose the question of how one should live.
This summary was written by AI and checked by a second AI model. How these are chosen.
Subjects: Ethics, Philosophy, Danish Philosophy, Faith, Melancholy, Aesthetics
