I. Capítulo 1
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A Valencian novel of land and feud for C1
The Cabin La barraca
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s complete novel of 1898, not an adaptation, in the Prometeo edition (Valencia). In the catalog it is C1: about 54,100 words and 21 words per sentence on average. Ten chapters, preceded by the author’s own preface, about a farming family on a cursed plot in the Valencian huerta; the long words come mostly from farm and irrigation vocabulary.
- C1
- 54 071 words
- 9-15 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 the farm and irrigation vocabulary (acequia, barraca, labriegos, azadón) and sentences of 20 words or more will slow you down, and the old á for a is distracting at first.
B2C1
This text
You can read it at C1 with word translation for the huerta vocabulary: the sentences are long but follow the story, and the chapters stay at a steady 19-24 words per sentence.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the novel reads freely; what is left to look up are the Valencian words and the long descriptions of the huerta.
Start readingThe average sentence has 21 words, and about one word in ten (10.2%) has 9 letters or more. That is the profile of the catalog’s C1 texts: Un viaje de novios has 20 words per sentence and 10.2% long words, La dama de las camelias 17 and 10.3%. Niebla, a B2 novel, has 13 words and 6.9%. The difficulty is even: the ten chapters run from 19 to 24 words per sentence, and the author’s preface is a little denser, at 25. The load comes from the vocabulary of the huerta (acequias, barracas, azadón, labriegos) and from old spelling such as á for a. Hence C1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 54 071
- words
- 21
- words in an average sentence
- 9-15
- hours of reading
Prometeo. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Tío Barret, a ruined tenant of the miserly don Salvador, loses the land his family worked for generations, and the whole Valencian huerta swears that nobody will farm it after him. Then Batiste Borrull, a restless laborer who has been a mill hand and a carter, arrives with his wife Teresa and their children, takes the abandoned plot and starts turning the wild field into a garden. The neighbors answer with silence and hostility, led by the tavern bully Pimentó. How far the hatred goes, and what it costs the family, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
La barraca
VI. Capítulo 6
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Choose an underlined word.
Verb first, pronoun attached
Desperezóse is se desperezó with the pronoun moved behind the verb, the bookish order that opens many sentences here; read it as “stretched itself awake”. The rest of the passage is a list of dawn sounds and creatures (ruiseñores, gorriones, techumbres), so the long periods come apart easily at their commas. Note too the old á for a: “á estremecerse” is today’s “a estremecerse”.
A school you hear first
The chapter opens with two sound images, rumor de avispero and susurro de colmena: we hear the school before we see it. The long second sentence holds the mill together with past participles (formada, montada, apoyada); follow them and the picture builds itself. Then se vió is the old spelling of se vio, and “knowledge” is made a badly housed lodger: the irony is the author’s.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
The long period that opens the novel, “Desperezóse la inmensa vega bajo el resplandor azulado del amanecer...”, puts the verb first with the pronoun attached, so translating the whole sentence in Reader shows its structure at once.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s complete novel, all ten chapters, preceded by the author’s own preface “Al lector”. The reader follows the Prometeo edition (Valencia) from Project Gutenberg; the novel itself first appeared in 1898. The spelling is old: á for a, fué for fue.
Is there an audiobook?
La barraca 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 the huerta vocabulary, such as avispero, plazoleta or machones.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most with the long periods that open the book, such as “Desperezóse la inmensa vega bajo el resplandor azulado del amanecer...”, and with the long descriptions of the huerta. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 9-15 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The author’s preface is about 1,360 words and the ten chapters run from about 3,050 to 6,800 words, so one or two chapters make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
The difficulty is even rather than easing. The author’s preface is a little denser, at about 25 words per sentence; the chapters then stay between 19 and 24, and the lightest are chapter X (about 19) and chapter VII (about 20).
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 ten chapters, and the preface, also opens from the contents on this page.