How long does it take to read The War?
The War by Marguerite Duras takes about 3 hours 21 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 21 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1986. 183 pages, about 50,325 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 36 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 21 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 6 minutes |
The page count is the median across 5 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
These extraordinary pages, written in 1944 but first published in 1985, form a totally new image of the heroine of The Lover and, through her, of Paris during the Nazi Occupation and the first months of Liberation. Married and living in Paris, part of a Resistance network headed by François Mitterrand, Duras is swept up in the turmoil of the period. She tells of nursing her starving husband back to life on his return from Belsen; interrogating a suspected collaborator; playing a game of cat and mouse with a Gestapo officer who is attracted to her; and more. The result is a book as moving as it is harrowing - perhaps Duras's finest yet.
Subjects: Authors, French, Biography, Personal narratives, French, French Personal narratives, French Authors, Bibliography
