How long does it take to read Perfume?
Perfume by Patrick Süskind takes about 4 hours 49 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 49 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1985. 263 pages, about 72,325 words.
10 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 8 hours 2 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 49 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 1 minute |
The page count is the median across 119 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • Set in eighteenth-century France, the classic novel that provokes a terrifying examination of what happens when one man’s indulgence in his greatest passion—his sense of smell—leads to murder. In the slums of eighteenth-century France, the infant Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is born with one sublime gift—an absolute sense of smell. As a boy, he lives to decipher the odors of Paris, and apprentices himself to a prominent perfumer who teaches him the ancient art of mixing precious oils and herbs. But Grenouille’s genius is such that he is not satisfied to stop there, and he becomes obsessed with capturing the smells of objects such as brass doorknobs and fresh-cut wood. Then one day he catches a hint of a scent that will drive him on an ever-more-terrifying quest to create the “ultimate perfume”—the scent of a beautiful young virgin. Told with dazzling narrative brilliance, Perfume is a hauntingly powerful tale of murder and sensual depravity.
Subjects: Historical fiction, psychological thriller, dark fantasy, coming-of-age, murder mystery, obsession
