Quote Origin: Speed Reading: I Was Able To Go Through ‘War and Peace’ in 20 Minutes. It’s About Russia

Woody Allen? Herb Caen? Rod Riggs? Anonymous?

Question for Quote Investigator: The ability to read and comprehend text quickly is a valuable skill. Several decades ago courses were developed that attempted to teach “speed reading” or “quick reading” techniques. The well-known comedian Woody Allen created a joke about applying speed-reading strategies to Tolstoy’s massive tome “War and Peace”. Are you familiar with this joke? Did Allen really originate it?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match found by QI appeared in the  “Chicago Daily News” in 1963. A journalist lauded the new comedian Woody Allen and presented several jokes from one of his performances in New York. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

A studious type, Allen undertook to learn Spanish on records, but at the wrong speed. He ended up speaking “a fairly torpid Castilian.” He took one of those rapid-reading courses, which resulted in his romping through “War and Peace” in 20 minutes! (“It’s about Russia. Beyond that, I’m vague.”)

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

In April 1967 the popular columnist Herb Caen credited the gag to Woody Allen:2

On speed reading: “I took a course in it, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and was able to go through ‘War and Peace’ in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia.”

In May 1967 the “Ames Daily Tribune” of Iowa printed the gag. The columnist Rod Riggs did not provide an attribution:3

Foolishness: The fellow took a speed reading course. “I learned to read straight down the middle of the page,” he reported. “I was able to go through ‘War and Peace’ in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia.”

In October 1967 “Reader’s Digest” printed the joke. This mass-circulation periodical has historically been an important nexus for the distribution of quotations and anecdotes. The joke was credited to Woody Allen, and an acknowledgement was given to Caen:4

Condensed Version. Woody Allen says, “I took a course in speed reading, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and I was able to go through War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia.”
— Herb Caen in San Francisco Chronicle

In February 1968 the widely-syndicated columnist Leonard Lyons wrote about his visit to San Francisco during which he dined with fellow columnist Herb Caen and with Barnaby Conrad who was a best-selling author and nightclub owner. Lyons reported that Allen rehearsed a version of the joke with Conrad:5

It was to Conrad that Woody Allen revealed his having taken a thorough quick-reading course: “For instance, Barnaby, I read ‘War and Peace’ in 42 minutes. What’s it about? I’ll tell you what it’s about. It’s about Russia.

In July 1968 an anonymous instance of the jest was printed in a Rome, New York newspaper which acknowledged another periodical:6

One fellow took a special course in speed reading and gave a testimonial as to its effectiveness.

“I learned to read straight down the middle of the page,” he said. “I was able to go through War and Peace in twenty minutes. It’s about Russia.” —Sunday School Times & Gospel Herald.

In June 1969 the popular columnist Earl Wilson shared a different quip about speed reading:7

EARL’S PEARLS: Jim Woelm of Minneapolis writes that he took a speed-reading course: “And it worked—I notice that I become confused much faster now.”

In August 1972 a book reviewer writing in the pages of the “Boston Herald” recalled seeing Woody Allen tell the joke on television:8

Holding a huge book in his bands, he confesses he has just read it in a few minutes. He has been wanting to read it for some time; had started it several times, but had never found the time to finish it. So he had signed on with a speed reading course and, after weeks of training, he had finally completed this book. He identifies it as “War and Peace.” Then, nodding his head, peering slantwise over his glasses, he tells the audience what he got out of it: “It’s about Russia.”

In conclusion, based on the 1963 citation QI believes Woody Allen deserves credit for this jest. He probably used it more than once, and the precise phrasing was variable.

Acknowledgement: Special thanks to Jesse Mazer who is a volunteer editor at Wikiquote. Mazer found a match in the Google Books (GB) database indicating that the jest was present in an issue of “Reader’s Digest” from 1967. He shared this information on a Wikiquote Talk page. That GB match has now disappeared; however, the lead allowed QI to search through “Reader’s Digest” and precisely locate the helpful October 1967 citation.

Update History: On September 8, 2024 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated. Also, the January 19, 1963 and the April 26, 1967 citations were added to the article. In addition, the article was partially rewritten.

  1. 1963 January 19, Chicago Daily News, Section: Panorama, The Comic Condition: A Sad Sack Is Woody Allen by Robert Shelton, Quote Page 23, Column 2, Chicago, Illinois. (GenealogyBank) ↩︎
  2. 1967 April 26, San Francisco Chronicle, Section 2, Pocketful of Notes by Herb Caen, Quote Page 23, Column 1, San Francisco, California. (GenealogyBank) ↩︎
  3. 1967 May 23, Ames Daily Tribune, From My Point of View by Rod Riggs, Quote Page 7, Column 2, Ames, Iowa. (NewspaperArchive) ↩︎
  4. 1967 October, Reader’s Digest, Volume 91, Condensed Version (filler item), Quote Page 120, The Reader’s Digest Association. (Verified on microfilm) ↩︎
  5. 1968 February 4, Sunday Advocate, The Lyons Den by Leonard Lyons, Quote Page 8B, Column 2, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (GenealogyBank) ↩︎
  6. 1968 July 30, Rome Daily Sentinel, He Knows (Filler item), Quote Page 6, Column 4, Rome, New York. (Old Fulton) ↩︎
  7. 1969 June 3, Richmond Times Dispatch, Show Time by Earl Wilson, Quote Page B19, Column 3, Richmond, Virginia. (GenealogyBank) ↩︎
  8. 1972 August 28, Boston Herald (Boston Herald Traveler), Speed Reading: Why? by P. Albert Duhamel, Quote Page 15, Column 1, Boston, Massachusetts. (GenealogyBank) ↩︎
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