How long is A Woman of the Pharisees?

A Woman of the Pharisees is approximately 50,750 words. At an average reading pace, it takes about 6 hours to read.

Is A Woman of the Pharisees difficult to read?

A Woman of the Pharisees has a difficulty score of 5.4 out of 10, making it quite demanding. Key factors include vocabulary complexity (5.2/10), sentence structure (5.8/10), abstract concepts (6.5/10).

What genre is A Woman of the Pharisees?

A Woman of the Pharisees is categorized as Literary Fiction. It was published in 1941 by François Mauriac.

Is A Woman of the Pharisees worth reading?

A Woman of the Pharisees by François Mauriac is highly regarded with a literary regard score of 6.6/10. Visit ReadingRate for the full difficulty analysis and reading guide.

When was A Woman of the Pharisees published?

A Woman of the Pharisees was published in 1941 by François Mauriac.

A Woman of the Pharisees by François Mauriac

Name: A Woman of the Pharisees
Author: François Mauriac

Published 1941 · 50,750 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction

How hard is A Woman of the Pharisees to read?

A Woman of the Pharisees scores 54 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 52 out of 100: Mauriac writes in elevated but accessible literary French, rendered in Gerard Hopkins's precise English translation. The vocabulary is literary without obscurity—theological terms like grace and Jansenism appear but are deployed through character and action rather than exposition. No specialized jargon or invented language creates barriers.
Sentence structure: 58 out of 100: Sentences run long and carry subordinate clauses in the French tradition, but Mauriac's prose remains navigable rather than labyrinthine. The retrospective narrator's reflective voice produces complex thoughts without the extreme hypotaxis of James or Proust. Paragraphs breathe with psychological observation folded into scene.
Abstraction: 65 out of 100: The novel's subject is inherently abstract—Jansenist theology, the operation of divine grace, spiritual self-deception—but Mauriac consistently grounds these ideas in concrete family scenes and individual humiliations. The theological argument is embedded in character rather than stated directly, requiring readers to register abstraction through its human effects.
Information density: 45 out of 100: A contained domestic novel spanning a limited cast in provincial France, without the historical sweep of Tolstoy or the encyclopedic texture of 2666. Each scene carries moral weight but the pace is deliberate and the reader is never overloaded. The density is psychological rather than informational.
Narrative indirection: 60 out of 100: Louis narrates retrospectively with adult understanding, meaning Brigitte's self-deception must be read against the narrator's analysis. Her damage to others is shown through consequence and accumulation rather than authorial statement. Readers must register the gap between her self-image and what she actually does, though the narrator does much of this work explicitly.
Symbolic density: 62 out of 100: The title functions as sustained allegory—Brigitte is the Pharisee of the Gospels rendered in modern domestic terms. Grace operates as an invisible structural force; the priest, Abbé Calou, embodies its polar opposite to Brigitte's legalism. Mauriac's Catholic symbolism is ever-present but anchored in recognizable human behavior rather than abstract mythic structure.
Ironic distance: 65 out of 100: The central irony—a devout Catholic whose faith destroys those around her—governs the entire novel without ever being stated. Mauriac presents Brigitte's perspective with apparent sympathy before quietly demonstrating its consequences. The distance between her self-understanding and the reader's judgment is the engine of the book, closer to Remains of the Day than to Lolita's overt seduction.
Resolution withholding: 45 out of 100: The novel reaches a moral reckoning: Brigitte in old age glimpses her own Pharisaism, and grace is implied as still available to her. This is not a neatly closed ending—Mauriac withholds certainty about her ultimate spiritual state—but the plot's damages are accounted for and the thematic argument reaches completion. The ambiguity is theological rather than structural.
Structural complexity: 38 out of 100: A chronological family narrative told in retrospect by a single narrator. Louis occasionally acknowledges the limits of his knowledge, but there are no radical timeline disruptions, no competing voices, and no formal experiments. The structure resembles War and Peace in scope relative to its modest register—straightforward but handled with care.

How A Woman of the Pharisees is regarded

A Woman of the Pharisees holds a literary regard score of 66 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

About the author

François Mauriac