I. Capítulo 1
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A Madrid novel of one hot May, for B2
Sunstroke Insolación
Emilia Pardo Bazán, 1911
Emilia Pardo Bazán’s complete novel of 1889, read from the 1911 Madrid edition, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 42,500 words and 16 words per sentence on average. 22 chapters about a young Galician widow in Madrid at the time of the San Isidro festival; the first twelve chapters are the denser ones, the last ten run lighter.
- B2
- 42 474 words
- 7-12 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the long sentences of chapters I-XII, the old spelling (fué, dió, á) and Pacheco’s dialect will slow you down; the second half, chapters XIII-XXII, is easier.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: the conversations are lively and from chapter XIII the sentences stay near 13 words; the first chapters are better read slowly, translating single words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the novel reads freely; only Pacheco’s Andalusian speech and the irony of the society gossip may need an occasional pause.
Start readingThe average sentence has 16 words: longer than in Niebla (13) and Marianela (15), but shorter than in Pardo Bazán’s own The House of Ulloa and A Wedding Trip (20 each, both C1 in the catalog). Roughly one word in ten is long, 9 letters or more (9.5%), just under the point where the catalog starts C1. The difficulty is uneven: chapters I-XII average about 18 words per sentence, chapters XIII-XXII about 13, and chapter IX reaches 43. Pacheco’s Andalusian speech, written as he says it (toa formaliá, boteya e mansaniya), adds more work. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 42 474
- words
- 16
- words in an average sentence
- 7-12
- hours of reading
- 1911
- V. Prieto y Compañía
V. Prieto y Compañía, 1911. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
One May morning in Madrid, Asís Taboada, a young widow from Galicia, wakes with a splitting headache and blames the sun. The day before she went to the San Isidro festival with Diego Pacheco, a lively young man from Cádiz, and what happened in the heat, over lunch in a tent with manzanilla, she would rather not remember. Over the following days she tries to keep up appearances, confides in her friend Don Gabriel Pardo and meets Pacheco again, while the time for her to leave Madrid draws near. How it ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
A list of symptoms in one sentence
The sentence begins with the main clause (fué un dolor) and then adds one symptom after another with semicolons. Fué and dió are the old spelling of fue and dio, and á is the modern a. Como si la barrenasen uses the imperfect subjunctive after “as if”, so the headache is described as a comparison, not as a fact.
Asís tells it herself
From here the story is in the first person (me pusieron colorada), so you read Asís’s own version of the day. The long sentence is held together by colons and by acaso adivinaba ó presentía otra cosa, pues...: “perhaps she guessed, or sensed, something else, since...”. The smiles of the girl embarrass Asís more than any words.
Where the text gets harder
I-XIIdenser start
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 opening sentence, La primer señal por donde Asís Taboada se hizo cargo de que había salido de los limbos del sueño, fué un dolor como si la barrenasen las sienes..., the subject comes only after a long clause, so translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how it fits together.
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Emilia Pardo Bazán’s complete novel Insolación (first published in 1889), all 22 chapters including the epilogue. The reader follows the Madrid edition of V. Prieto y Compañía, 1911 (Obras completas, volume VII), which also printed her short novel Morriña; that one is not part of this book. The source is Project Gutenberg.
Is there an audiobook?
Sunstroke has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the novel is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for colloquial words and Pacheco’s Andalusian speech, such as churretazos or toa formaliá.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. A good case is Verdad que estaba á cubierto lo mismo que el que sale al campo á las doce del día bajo un paraguas: the irony is clear only when the whole sentence is translated. 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. The 22 chapters run from about 450 to 3,600 words, so one or two make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
From chapter XIII. Chapters I-XII average about 18 words per sentence (chapter IX reaches 43); chapters XIII-XXII stay near 13, with more dialogue and shorter lines.
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 22 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter XIII, where the lighter second half begins.