I. Capítulo 1
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A bullfighting novel for C1 readers
Blood and Sand Sangre y arena
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s 1908 novel, complete and not an adaptation. In the catalog it is C1: about 111,100 words and 17 words per sentence on average. Ten long chapters follow the matador Juan Gallardo from a Madrid hotel to the bullring and to Seville; chapters II and VII are the densest, while the dialogue in V and VI reads faster.
- C1
- 111 084 words
- 19-31 hours
Will this text hold?
B2
Earlier
At B2 chapters I-IV and VII will wear you out: sentences of 18-20 words, clauses with de los cuales, and bullfighting and country words such as garrocha and zajones that need a tap.
B2C1
This text
You can manage it at C1: the narration is vivid and the plot keeps moving, and the dialogue chapters V and VI go faster, though Andalusian speech spelled as it sounds (paece, güen) takes some getting used to.
Check this passageC2
With room to spare
At C2 the text reads freely; only the bullfighting vocabulary and the older pronoun placement (contemplábalo, enorgullecíase) still call for an occasional tap.
Start readingThe average sentence has 17 words, the same as La dama de las camelias (C1) and clearly more than Niebla (B2, 13 words). What sets the level is vocabulary: 10.6% of the words have 9 letters or more, about one in nine, above the catalog’s C1 line of one in ten; Niebla has one in fourteen. The book is fairly even. Chapters I-IV and VII run at 18-20 words per sentence, while the dialogue chapters V and VI are lighter, at 15 words per sentence and 7.3% and 9.7% long words, though the Andalusian speech of the characters is spelled as it sounds (paece, güen). Hence C1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 111 084
- words
- 17
- words in an average sentence
- 19-31
- hours of reading
Prometeo. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Juan Gallardo, a cobbler’s son from Seville, has become one of Spain’s most celebrated matadors. We meet him on a bullfight day in a Madrid hotel, calm and already adored by the crowd. Back home he is the centre of a large family circle: his wife Carmen, his sister with her husband and children, and friends who gather every evening. The marquis of Moraima, who breeds the bulls, treats him almost like a nephew, until the marquis’s niece, doña Sol, enters his life and his certainties begin to shake. How his career and his marriage turn out is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Short sentences, then a chain of gerunds
The scene opens with five short sentences, then one long sentence hangs on three gerunds: quedando (“staying”), apoyada (“resting”, a participle) and mirando (“looking”). Read them as three snapshots of the same posture. Había que conservarse sereno is “one had to stay calm”: había que + infinitive states a necessity with no subject.
The pronoun after the verb
Contemplábalo is lo contemplaba (“he looked at him”): in literary prose of 1908 a clause often opens with the verb and the pronoun is attached behind it. Modern speech puts the pronoun before the verb, so when you meet forms like this, move the pronoun back in your head. The same habit gives enorgullecíase and sintiérase on the next lines.
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
In chapter IV one sentence of 44 words describes the marquis’s ancestors and ends restos de los cuales eran las vastas llanuras en las que pacían actualmente los toros del marqués: translating the whole sentence in Reader keeps the clause de los cuales from getting lost.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s complete novel, all 10 chapters, finished in Madrid in January-March 1908. The text comes from the Prometeo edition (Valencia) on Project Gutenberg; its title page carries a 1919 copyright line, so the exact printing year is not given here.
Is there an audiobook?
Blood and Sand 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 bullfighting and country words such as zajones or garrocha.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. Here it helps most in the long descriptive sentences, for example one of 44 words in chapter IV that ends restos de los cuales eran las vastas llanuras en las que pacían actualmente los toros del marqués. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole novel takes about 19-31 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The 10 chapters run from about 6,800 to 14,800 words, so one chapter is one or two evenings.
Where does the text get easier?
It stays fairly even and does not become easy. Chapters V and VI, which are mostly dialogue, are the lightest at about 15 words per sentence; chapters II and VII are the densest, at about 20 and 19.
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 10 chapters also opens from the contents on this page.