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I. Perdido
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Galdós’s novel of a blind youth, for B2
Marianela Marianela
Benito Pérez Galdós, 1878
Benito Pérez Galdós’s complete novel from the 1878 printing, not an adaptation (a B1 MovaReader retelling of it is also in the catalog). In the catalog it is B2: about 50,500 words and 15 words per sentence on average. 22 chapters about the blind Pablo and Nela, the girl who guides him; the descriptive chapters IV and V are the hardest, the rest runs largely on dialogue.
- B2
- 50 524 words
- 8-14 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the landscape chapters IV and V will be slow going, with long descriptive sentences and rare words, and forms like mirose and sobrecogiéronla need unpacking; the B1 retelling of this novel is a good bridge.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: the talks between Pablo and Nela come in short, lively sentences, and the descriptive chapters can be read slowly, translating single words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the novel reads freely; only the dense descriptions of chapters IV and V and the farewell of chapter XXII slow you down.
Start readingThe average sentence has 15 words: a little longer than Mist (13), level with Jungle Tales (15) and well short of Captain Poison (20); the B1 retelling of this same novel averages 12. 8.7 percent of the words have 9 letters or more, inside the B2 range. The difficulty is uneven: the landscape chapters IV and V average 21 and 25 words per sentence (12.3 percent long words in chapter V) and the farewell chapter XXII about 22, while the conversations of Pablo and Nela in chapters III, VI and VIII run at 11 to 12. Old forms like mirose and sobrecogiéronla add some work. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 50 524
- words
- 15
- words in an average sentence
- 8-14
- hours of reading
- 1878
- Imprenta y Litografía de La Guirnalda
Imprenta y Litografía de La Guirnalda, 1878. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
On a dark night the eye surgeon Teodoro Golfín loses his way among the mines of Socartes in northern Spain. A young man leads him out of the dark: Pablo, the handsome and clever son of a landowner, blind from birth. Pablo’s own guide is Nela, a poor orphan whom everyone treats as worthless and who describes the world to him; he, who has never seen a face, is sure that she must be beautiful. When Golfín proposes an operation that could give Pablo his sight, and Pablo’s lovely cousin Florentina arrives, Nela begins to dread the day her master will see. What the operation brings, and what becomes of Nela, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Marianela
XIV. De cómo la Virgen María se apareció a la Nela
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Choose an underlined word.
A man talking to himself
Teodoro Golfín is lost and argues with himself aloud, even calling himself tú: “Aquí tienes, Teodoro Golfín, el resultado de tu adelante, siempre adelante”. Spanish dialogue is opened with a long dash, and the speech tag (murmuró) sits between dashes with no space around it; the words in brackets are the narrator’s joke. “Adelante, siempre adelante” is his motto, and that very motto has just led him astray.
Find the verb that waits
The first sentence is long because the main verb comes late. After “Así ocurrió a Mariquilla” the clause “que, habiéndose quedado dormida con los pensamientos más raros...” delays the point until “con ellos mismos despertó”. Look for despertó first, then read the gerund clause backwards to see what she dreamed about. Mariquilla is the Nela’s real name, the one Marianela comes from.
Chapters
- IPerdido
- IIGuiado
- IIIUn diálogo que servirá de exposición
- IVLa familia de piedra
- VTrabajo. Paisaje. Figura
- VITonterías
- VIIMás tonterías
- VIIIProsiguen las tonterías
- IXLos Golfines
- XHistoria de dos hijos del pueblo
- XIEl patriarca de Aldeacorba
- XIIEl doctor Celipín
- XIIIEntre dos cestas
- XIVDe cómo la Virgen María se apareció a la Nela
- XVLos tres
- XVILa promesa
- XVIIFugitiva y meditabunda
- XVIIILa Nela se decide a partir
- XIXDomesticación
- XXEl nuevo mundo
- XXILos ojos matan
- XXIIAdiós
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 XIV one sentence opens with “Así ocurrió a Mariquilla, que habiéndose quedado dormida con los pensamientos más raros” and holds its main verb back until “con ellos mismos despertó”: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how the pieces fit together.
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: Benito Pérez Galdós’s complete novel, all 22 chapters, as first published in Madrid in 1878. The reader follows Project Gutenberg ebook 17340, which reproduces the 1878 printing of the Imprenta y Litografía de La Guirnalda, Madrid. A B1 MovaReader retelling of the same novel is also in the catalog (marianela-adaptacion), if you want an easier way in.
Is there an audiobook?
Marianela 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 rare or regional words such as pasadera, palurdos or retahíla.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps most in the long descriptive sentences of chapters IV and V and in sentences that hold their verb back, like “Así ocurrió a Mariquilla, que habiéndose quedado dormida con los pensamientos más raros” in chapter XIV. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 8-14 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters run from about 850 words (XXII) to about 4,800 (XXI), most between 1,300 and 3,700, so one or two chapters make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
Not evenly. The chapters of Pablo and Nela’s talks and walks (III, VI-VIII, X) are the easiest, at 11 to 14 words per sentence. The hardest stretch is chapters IV and V, at 21 and 25 words per sentence, and the last chapter, XXII, climbs back to about 22. The other chapters run at 12 to 20 words.
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 where you left off. Any of the 22 chapters also opens from the contents on this page.