Capítulo I
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A vast realist novel for upper B2 readers
La Regenta La Regenta
Leopoldo Alas “Clarín”, 1900
The complete novel by Leopoldo Alas “Clarín” in both of its volumes, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 302,200 words and 19 words per sentence on average. 30 chapters about Ana Ozores, the young wife of Vetusta’s former regent, and the two men who court her, the cathedral’s canon Fermín de Pas and the gallant Álvaro Mesía; the long descriptive chapters are the hardest, the dialogue chapters run lighter.
- B2
- 302 217 words
- 50-84 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the long sentences of 25 words or more, the clerical and legal vocabulary and the old past forms will make the first chapters slow, and many words will need translating.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: most chapters run at 15-20 words per sentence, and the opening description of Vetusta and the densest chapters can be read slowly, translating single words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the novel reads freely; only the ironic narrator, the free indirect speech and the dense clerical and regional vocabulary still ask for attention.
Start readingThe average sentence has 19 words, and one word in eleven has 9 letters or more (9.0%). That is the top of the B2 range in the Spanish catalog and just under the C1 line, which starts at one long word in ten (9.9%). Sentence length alone would put it among C1 books such as La dama de las camelias (17 words) and La barraca (21); Niebla, also B2, averages 13. The difficulty is uneven: chapters I, XVI, XVIII and XIX run at 24-27 words per sentence, while VII, X, XXV and XXVII sit at 15-16. What adds work is the sheer size of the book and the vocabulary of the cathedral, the clergy and provincial life, more than any single hard passage. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 302 217
- words
- 19
- words in an average sentence
- 50-84
- hours of reading
- 1900
- Librería de Fernando Fé
Librería de Fernando Fé, 1900. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
In Vetusta, a sleepy provincial cathedral city, Ana Ozores is known to everyone as la Regenta: the young, beautiful and devout wife of Víctor Quintanar, a kind retired regent of the court of appeal who is much older than she is. Her confessor, the ambitious canon Fermín de Pas, wants to rule her soul; Álvaro Mesía, the city’s charming local Don Juan, wants her body; and the whole town watches, gossips and takes sides. Between the cathedral, the casino and the dinner tables of Vetusta, Ana tries to find a meaning for her marriage and her faith. How it ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
La Regenta
Capítulo XV
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Choose an underlined word.
A long sentence made of lists
The novel opens with dust, not with people. Find the main verbs first: dormía, empujaba, no había. Then the long sentence just lists things: polvo, trapos, pajas y papeles, and the repeated de arroyo en arroyo, de acera en acera, de esquina en esquina. Iban... revolando y persiguiéndose is ir plus a gerund: they “went along fluttering and chasing each other”, a way to say how they moved. Clarín is already making the town itself sleepy and restless at the same time.
What the silence says
Here almost nothing is said, and everything is in the verbs of looking: veía subir, la miró. Veía... a su hijo subir (“she watched her son climb”) is ver plus an infinitive. Sin que ella le viese is sin que with the subjunctive: “without her seeing him”. Notice the mother’s stillness, tiesa, como un fantasma negro: the scene is built from what each of them notices about the other before a single word is spoken.
Chapters
- ICapítulo 1
- IICapítulo 2
- IIICapítulo 3
- IVCapítulo 4
- VCapítulo 5
- VICapítulo 6
- VIICapítulo 7
- VIIICapítulo 8
- IXCapítulo 9
- XCapítulo 10
- XICapítulo 11
- XIICapítulo 12
- XIIICapítulo 13
- XIVCapítulo 14
- XVCapítulo 15
- XVICapítulo 16
- XVIICapítulo 17
- XVIIICapítulo 18
- XIXCapítulo 19
- XXCapítulo 20
- XXICapítulo 21
- XXIICapítulo 22
- XXIIICapítulo 23
- XXIVCapítulo 24
- XXVCapítulo 25
- XXVICapítulo 26
- XXVIICapítulo 27
- XXVIIICapítulo 28
- XXIXCapítulo 29
- XXXCapítulo 30
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
In chapter I the cathedral tower is “poema romántico de piedra, delicado himno, de dulces líneas de belleza muda y perenne”, a sentence that piles up images before reaching its verb: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how the praise is built.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Spanish books B1 Earlier El Señor y lo demás son cuentos (with ¡Adiós, Cordera!) El Señor y lo demás son cuentos Another book by the same author B2
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Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Leopoldo Alas “Clarín”’s complete novel, all 30 chapters of both volumes (15 in each). The reader follows the text of the edition published by Librería de Fernando Fé, Madrid, in 1900, taken from Project Gutenberg. The novel first appeared in 1884-1885; the 1901 prologue by Galdós is not part of it here.
Is there an audiobook?
La Regenta 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 rare or old-fashioned words such as palmatoria or revolando.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most in the long descriptive passages, for example “La torre de la catedral, poema romántico de piedra, delicado himno, de dulces líneas de belleza muda y perenne”, or in chapters XVI and XVIII, which average about 27 words per sentence. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 50-84 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters are long, from about 6,100 to 16,500 words, so one chapter is usually an evening or two.
Where does the text get easier?
It is uneven rather than steadily easier. Chapter I opens with the longest descriptive sentences (about 26 words on average), and chapters XVI, XVIII and XIX are just as dense. The lightest stretches are chapters VII, X, XXV and XXVII, at 15-16 words per sentence, where dialogue and short scenes carry the story.
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 30 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter XVI, where the second volume begins.