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How long does it take to read Fathers and Sons?

Turgenev Ivan

Fathers and Sons by Turgenev Ivan takes about 4 hours 32 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 4 hours 32 minutes

A weekend read

First published 1867. 247 pages, about 67,925 words.

10 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 7 hours 33 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 4 hours 32 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 2 hours 50 minutes

The page count is the median across 208 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

Fathers and Sons takes the conflict between generations as its subject. The novel's central characters, Yevgeny Bazarov and his disciple and fellow student, Arkady Kirsanov, are self-proclaimed Nihilists: repudiators of all the received truths of art, religion, and politics-all claims to truth, in fact, except those verifiable by scientific experiment. Turgenev thrusts his snarling young radicals into the venerable world of fathers when Bazarov accompanies Arkady to the Kirsanov country estate. The visit inevitably turns sour, and Arkady's Uncle Pavel and Bazarov find themselves at one another's metaphysical throats. Their disagreements escalate into a dangerous confrontation.When Fathers and Sons was published in 1862, it enveloped its author in a storm of controversy. Those on the political right saw it as a dangerous glorification of nihilism, whereas those on the political left believed it to be a vicious caricature of the progressives of the younger generation. Today, the novel continues to engage us with its vital characters and subtle handling of universal themes.

Subjects: Fiction, Social life and customs, Fathers and sons, Social conditions, Nihilism (Philosophy), Correspondence

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