How long does it take to read Gargantua and Pantagruel?
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais takes about 7 hours 20 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 20 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1900. 400 pages, about 110,000 words. Written for children.
15 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 12 hours 13 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 20 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 35 minutes |
The page count is the median across 20 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
This is the third book (hence "Tiers Livre") of François Rabelais's satirical masterpiece usually called Gargantua et Pantagruel. Pantagurel's sidekick and servant, Panurge ("trickster" in Greek), is trying to decide if he should get married--he wants sons, but he is terrified that a wife might beat, rob, and cuckold him. He, Pantagruel, and Pantagruel's other followers consult a range of supposed "experts" from magicians to lawyers and Panurge refuses to accept either that yes, he'll probably get cuckolded, or that in life you need to decide what you want, take a chance and risk being wrong. This brilliant and profound--and very funny--book has religious significance in an age of painful religious choice and of course relevance to all human relations. How to have a good wife? Panurge is told that being a good husband is probably the best way, but he will have none of that. One of the world's great classics.
Subjects: Fiction, French Fantasy fiction, French fiction, Gargantua (Legendary character), Giants, satire