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I. Capítulo 1
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A philosophical novel in dialogue for B2
Mist Niebla
Miguel de Unamuno, 1914
Miguel de Unamuno’s novel from the 1914 first edition, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 56,800 words and 13 words per sentence on average. 33 chapters about Augusto Pérez, who falls for the piano teacher Eugenia; the prologue and chapter XXIII are the hardest, the rest runs on dialogue.
- B2
- 56 802 words
- 9-16 hours
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the prologue and chapter XXIII will be slow going, and old forms like quedóse and díjose need unpacking.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: Augusto’s conversations and monologues come in short sentences, and the prologue and chapter XXIII can be read slowly, translating single words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the novel reads freely; only the philosophical asides and the irony of chapter XXIII slow you down.
Start readingThe average sentence has 13 words, because most chapters run on dialogue and Augusto’s inner monologues. One word in fourteen has 9 letters or more. The difficulty is uneven: Víctor Goti’s prologue before chapter I averages 32 words per sentence with a long word every ninth word, chapter XXIII about 22, and the other chapters about 12. Wordplay and philosophical asides add work, but short lines carry them. Hence B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 56 802
- words
- 13
- words in an average sentence
- 9-16
- hours of reading
- 1914
- Renacimiento
Renacimiento, 1914. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Augusto Pérez, a wealthy and lonely young man, has just lost his mother and drifts through life without a purpose. One day he follows a stranger down the street and falls in love: she is Eugenia, a piano teacher who already has a boyfriend, Mauricio. Augusto writes her letters, talks to his dog Orfeo and to his friend Víctor, and meanwhile takes an interest in Rosario, the girl who brings back his ironing. How his courtship ends, and what becomes of him, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Augusto and augusta
The first sentence is long but rests on its verbs, extendió and quedóse. Quedóse is quedó with the pronoun after the verb, as bookish Spanish still wrote it then; díjose later works the same way. Augusta means “majestic” here and puns on the hero’s name, Augusto. Then No era que..., sino era que... (“it wasn’t that..., but that...”) deflates the pose: he is only checking whether it rains.
Praise that mocks
The portrait of the scholar Paparrigópulos sounds like praise, yet every phrase mocks him: a mind “clear, above all clear”, without any nebulosidades. Las nieblas hiperbóreas are the “far-northern mists” of beer-drinking northern thinkers, and the cure offered is sano Valdepeñas enyesado, a Valdepeñas table wine clarified with gypsum. Long sentences full of rare words like these make chapter XXIII the densest in the book.
Where the text gets harder
I-XXIIdialogue and short sentences
XXIIIthe densest chapter
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 Víctor Goti’s prologue sentences average 32 words: translating the whole sentence in Reader keeps the thought from getting lost among the asides.
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: Miguel de Unamuno’s complete novel, all 33 chapters with Víctor Goti’s prologue, the author’s post-prologue and the epilogue. The reader follows the 1914 first edition (Renacimiento, Madrid). Its cover simply says novela, while the title page says nivola, the name Unamuno gave his new kind of novel.
Is there an audiobook?
Mist 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 orvallo or embolismos.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this novel it helps most in Víctor Goti’s prologue, where sentences average 32 words, and in chapter XXIII, at about 22. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 9-16 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. Chapters are short, from about 700 to 3,200 words, so one or two make an evening.
Where does the text get easier?
From chapter I. Víctor Goti’s prologue is the densest part of the book: 32 words per sentence on average and a long word every ninth word. After it, chapters I-XXII run on dialogue at about 12 words per sentence; only chapter XXIII gets harder again, at about 22.
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 33 chapters also opens from the contents on this page, for example chapter I, right after the prologue.