How long does it take to read Samskara?
A Rite for a Dead Man
U. R. Anantha Murthy
Samskara by U. R. Anantha Murthy takes about 2 hours 48 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 2 hours 48 minutes
An evening's read
First published 1976. 153 pages, about 42,075 words.
6 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 4 hours 41 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 2 hours 48 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 1 hour 45 minutes |
The page count is the median across 3 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Made into a powerful, award-winning film in 1970, this important Kannada novel of the sixties has received widespread acclaim from both critics and general readers since its first publication in 1965. As a religious novel about a decaying brahmin colony in the south Indian village of Karnataka, "Samskara" serves as an allegory rich in realistic detail, a contemporary reworking of ancient Hindu themes and myths, and a serious, poetic study of a religious man living in a community of priests gone to seed. A death, which stands as the central event in the plot, brings in its wake a plague, many more deaths, live questions with only dead answers, moral chaos, and the rebirth of one man. The volume provides a useful glossary of Hindu myths, customs, Indian names, flora, and other terms. Notes and an afterword enhance the self-contained, faithful, and yet readable translation
Subjects: Fiction, Indic fiction (English), Kannada fiction, Fiction, general