How long does it take to read The Penelopiad?
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood takes about 3 hours 30 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 30 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2005. 191 pages, about 52,525 words.
7 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 5 hours 50 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 30 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 11 minutes |
The page count is the median across 50 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Homer's Odyssey is not the only version of the story. Mythic material was originally oral, and also local -- a myth would be told one way in one place and quite differently in another. I have drawn on material other than the Odyssey, especially for the details of Penelope's parentage, her early life and marriage, and the scandalous rumors circulating about her. I've chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing Chorus, which focuses on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of the Odyssey: What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? The story as told in the Odyssey doesn't hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. I've always been haunted by the hanged maids and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself. The author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin presents a cycle of stories about Penelope, wife of Odysseus, through the eyes of the twelve maids hanged for disloyalty to Odysseus in his absence.
Subjects: Penelope (Greek mythology), Odysseus (Greek mythology), Fiction, Pénélope (Mythologie grecque), Romans, nouvelles, Ulysse (Mythologie grecque)
