How long does it take to read Narcissus and Goldmund?
Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse takes about 5 hours 53 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 53 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1930. 321 pages, about 88,275 words.
12 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 49 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 53 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 41 minutes |
The page count is the median across 42 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
First published in 1930, Narcissus and Goldmund is the story of two diametrically opposite men: one, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and the other, a romantic youth hungry for worldly experience. Hesse was a great writer in precisely the modern sense: complex, subtle, allusive: alive to the importance of play. Narcissus and Goldmund is his very best. What makes this short book so limitlessly vast is the body-and-soul-shaking debate that runs through it, which it has the honesty and courage not to resolve: between the flesh and spirit, art and scientific or religious speculation, action and contemplation.
Subjects: Teacher-student relationships, Fiction, Romance, German fiction, Literatura alemã, English fiction