I. Capítulo 1
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A family novel of will and motherhood for B2
Aunt Tula La tía Tula
Miguel de Unamuno, 1921
Miguel de Unamuno’s novel from the 1921 first edition (Renacimiento), not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 30,800 words and 13 words per sentence on average. 25 chapters about Gertrudis, called Tula, who raises her sister’s children in a house where she will not be a wife; Unamuno’s prologue and chapter VII are the hardest, the rest runs on dialogue.
- B2
- 30 800 words
- 5-9 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the prologue and chapter VII will be slow going, with their long sentences full of asides, and old forms like llamábale and fué need unpacking.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: most chapters are short scenes in dialogue with sentences of about ten words, and the prologue and chapter VII can be read slowly, translating single words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the novel reads freely; only Unamuno’s abstract talk of motherhood and duty in the prologue and chapter VII slows you down.
Start readingThe average sentence has 13 words, the lower edge of the catalog’s B2 range for complete texts (13 to 30), and one word in sixteen has 9 letters or more. Most chapters are short scenes in dialogue at 9 to 12 words per sentence, close to Niebla, which is also B2 at 13 words. The difficulty is uneven: Unamuno’s prologue averages 24 words per sentence with 8.7% long words, chapter VII reaches about 28, and chapters XI and XVIII about 19. Old forms like llamábale and fué, and abstract talk of motherhood and duty, add work. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 30 800
- words
- 13
- words in an average sentence
- 5-9
- hours of reading
- 1921
- Renacimiento
Renacimiento, 1921. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Gertrudis, whom everyone calls Tula, lives with her sister Rosa. When Ramiro begins to court Rosa, the steadiest eyes in the house are Tula’s: she weighs him up coolly and is in no hurry to give way. What she wants is not a husband but a house and children to raise as a mother, and the novel follows how that will plays out over the years among her sister’s family, the young servant Manuela and the nephews she treats as her own. How the household ends up, and what becomes of Tula, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
La tía Tula
XIII. Capítulo 13
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Choose an underlined word.
Eran ... los que
Unamuno builds the sentence as a frame: eran luego los ojos tenaces de Gertrudis los que sujetaban... (“it was Gertrudis’s steady eyes that held...”). Find eran ... los que first, then read what the eyes do. Poner raya a alguien means to set a limit for him, and the quote that follows, “Con esta pareja no se juega”, says it outright: no playing with this pair.
Pronoun after the verb
In llamábale “señora” the pronoun stands after the verb: it is le llamaba, the bookish order of the time (like quedóse elsewhere). Quiso hacer que le llamase uses the imperfect subjunctive llamase (today more often llamara) after hacer que. The choice between señora and señorita matters here: Gertrudis herself prefers señora, as the next lines show.
Chapters
- ·Prólogo
- 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
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 sentence “pero eran luego los ojos tenaces de Gertrudis los que sujetaban a los ojos que se habían fijado en ellos” stacks eyes on eyes: translating the whole sentence in Reader keeps straight who is looking at whom.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this level
Before you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Miguel de Unamuno’s complete novel, all 25 chapters with the author’s own prologue (the one a novel reader may skip, he says). The reader follows the 1921 first edition (Renacimiento, Madrid), as digitized by Project Gutenberg; its title page calls the book a novela.
Is there an audiobook?
Aunt Tula has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the novel is read. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for rare or bookish words such as hospiciana or caviloso.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most in Unamuno’s prologue, where sentences average 24 words, and in chapter VII, at about 28: a sentence like “pero eran luego los ojos tenaces de Gertrudis los que sujetaban a los ojos que se habían fijado en ellos” becomes clear when translated whole. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 5-9 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters are short, from about 640 to 2,300 words, so two or three make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
From chapter I. Unamuno’s prologue is the densest part of the book: 24 words per sentence on average. After it most chapters run on short scenes in dialogue at about 9-12 words per sentence; only chapter VII, at about 28, and chapters XI and XVIII, at about 19, get harder again.
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 25 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter I, right after the prologue.