How long does it take to read The Bell?
The Bell by Iris Murdoch takes about 5 hours 51 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 51 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1958. 319 pages, about 87,725 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 45 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 51 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 39 minutes |
The page count is the median across 71 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
A lay community of thoroughly mixed-up people is encamped outside Imber Abbey, home of an enclosed order of nuns. A new bell, legendary symbol of religion and magic, is rediscovered. Dora Greenfield, erring wife, returns to her husband. Michael Mead, leader of the community, is confronted by Nick Fawley, with whom he had disastrous homosexual relations, while the wise old Abbess watches and prays and exercises discreet authority. And everyone, or almost everyone, hopes to be saved whatever that may mean...Iris Murdoch's funny and sad novel is about religion, the fight between good and evil and the terrible accidents of human frailty.
Subjects: Fiction, Married women, Gay men, Church bells, Religious communities, Married people, fiction
