Libro primero. I. En que cuenta quién es el Buscón.
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A picaresque novel full of puns, for B2
El Buscón Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado don Pablos
Francisco de Quevedo
Francisco de Quevedo’s picaresque novel, complete and in the original Spanish, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 43,100 words and 23 words per sentence on average. Three libros of 23 short chapters follow the rogue Pablos from Segovia to Alcalá, Madrid and beyond; what makes it hard is not the grammar but Quevedo’s wordplay.
- B2
- 43 073 words
- 7-12 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the long portraits and sentences chained with semicolons will be slow going, and many jokes and slang words will need unpacking.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: the plot moves fast and sentences average 23 words. Read the portraits slowly, translate single words, and do not worry if a few puns stay opaque.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the story reads freely; only Quevedo’s conceptos, the double meanings packed into single phrases, and the criminal slang still need attention.
Start readingThe average sentence has 23 words and one word in fifteen has 9 letters or more (6.6%). That sits inside the B2 range of the catalog’s complete texts, close to Pepita Jiménez (22 words) and far below Paradise Lost and Don Quixote (38 and 43 words, both C2). The level is even from chapter to chapter, from 18 to 28 words per sentence. What costs effort is meaning rather than length: conceptista wordplay with double senses, thieves’ slang (germanía), hyperbolic portraits such as the 156-word sentence about the licenciado Cabra, and 17th-century forms like agora or pronouns after the verb (díjome, fueme). Hence B2: the plot is easy to follow, but some jokes will need a second look. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 43 073
- words
- 23
- words in an average sentence
- 7-12
- hours of reading
Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Pablos, born in Segovia to a barber who steals and a mother with a doubtful past, is set on rising above his birth and becoming a gentleman. He serves the son of a nobleman, don Diego, first at the starving boarding school of the licenciado Cabra and then at the university of Alcalá, where newcomers are hazed. When news from home shows him what his family really is, he heads for Madrid and falls in with beggars, card sharps, poets and rogues, posing as a nobleman to marry money. Whether the pose holds, and where his luck takes him, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado don Pablos
IV. Del hospedaje de su tío, y visitas; la cobranza de su hacienda y vuelta a la corte.
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Choose an underlined word.
Jokes hidden in plain phrases
Quevedo packs insults into innocent images. Metía el dos de bastos para sacar el as de oros is a card-game picture: slipping in a two of clubs to pull out the ace of gold, which here means stealing. The diminutives hermanico and angelico sound tender but soften a brutal fact: the boy died after a flogging in prison. Do not translate such phrases word for word; ask what the image stands for.
Let the objects talk
Pablos says little, but the nails tell the story: penca, cordeles, lazos, cuchillos and escarpias hang on the wall before anyone names the uncle’s trade. The dry remark “para si se diferenciaba en algo de la horca” (to see whether it differed from the gallows) is understatement used for effect. Note the pronoun after the verb in díjome and the verb-first order of Colgó la penca, typical of this prose; Dios sabe cuál estaba means “God knows how I felt”.
Chapters
- ·Libro primero. I. En que cuenta quién es el Buscón.
- IIDe cómo fue a la escuela y lo que en ella le sucedió.
- IIIDe cómo fue a un pupilaje por criado de don Diego Coronel.
- IVDe la convalecencia y ida a estudiar a Alcalá de Henares.
- VDe la entrada de Alcalá, patente y burlas que le hicieron por nuevo.
- VIDe las crueldades de la ama, y travesuras que hizo.
- VIIDe la ida de don Diego, y nuevas de la muerte de su padre y madre, y la resolución que tomó en sus cosas para adelante.
- ·Libro segundo. I. Del camino de Alcalá para Segovia, y de lo que le sucedió en él hasta Rejas, donde durmió aquella noche.
- IIDe lo que le sucedió hasta llegar a Madrid, con un poeta.
- IIIDe lo que hizo en Madrid, y lo que le sucedió hasta llegar a Cercedilla, donde durmió.
- IVDel hospedaje de su tío, y visitas; la cobranza de su hacienda y vuelta a la corte.
- VDe su huida, y los sucesos en ella hasta la Corte.
- VIEn que prosigue el camino y lo prometido de su vida y costumbres.
- ·Libro tercero. I. De lo que le sucedió en la Corte luego que llegó hasta que amaneció.
- IIEn que prosigue la materia comenzada y cuenta algunos raros sucesos.
- IIIEn que prosigue la misma materia, hasta dar con todos en la cárcel.
- IVEn que trata los sucesos de la cárcel, hasta salir la vieja azotada, los compañeros a la vergüenza y él en fiado.
- VDe cómo tomó posada, y la desgracia que le sucedió en ella.
- VIProsigue el cuento, con otros varios sucesos.
- VIIEn que se prosigue lo mismo, con otros sucesos y desgracias que le sucedieron.
- VIIIDe su cura y otros sucesos peregrinos.
- IXEn que se hace representante, poeta y galán de monjas.
- XDe lo que le sucedió en Sevilla hasta embarcarse a Indias.
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
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In the portrait of the licenciado Cabra one sentence runs to 156 words, from “Él era un clérigo cerbatana, largo sólo en el talle” onward: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how the chain of comparisons builds the joke.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Francisco de Quevedo’s complete novel, all 23 chapters in three libros. The text comes from a Project Gutenberg digital edition that does not say which print edition it follows. The novel was first printed in Zaragoza in 1626 (the cover shows that title page), after circulating in manuscript.
Is there an audiobook?
El Buscón has no audiobook on MovaReader: the novel is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for slang and rare words such as faldriqueras or escarpias.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this novel it helps most in the long portraits, for example the 156-word sentence that begins “Él era un clérigo cerbatana” in the third chapter of the first libro. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 7-12 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters run from about 700 to 3,300 words, so one or two make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
It stays even. Chapters average between 18 and 28 words per sentence, with only a slight rise in the last chapters of the third libro, where the slang gets thicker. The densest passages are the set-piece portraits, such as the one of the licenciado Cabra.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back to the novel every evening where you left off. Any of the 23 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example the first chapter of the second libro.