A dictator novel in Latin American Spanish

Tyrant Banderas Tirano Banderas

Name: Tyrant Banderas
Author: Ramón del Valle-Inclán

Ramón del Valle-Inclán, 1926

Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s complete novel from the 1926 first edition, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is C1: about 48,900 words and 13 words per sentence on average, with about one word in eight of 9 letters or more. 27 sections: a prologue, seven parts divided into books, and an epilogue, about the dictator of an imaginary Latin American republic.

C1
48 927 words
8-14 hours

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Will this text hold?

B2

Earlier

At B2 the sentences are manageable, but about one word in eight is long and many are rare or regional, so expect to translate a lot and to read slowly.

C1

This text

You can manage it at C1: the Latin American and period vocabulary is the main obstacle, and the short sections help. Translate the regional words as you go and keep reading for the pictures the narrator builds.

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C2

With room to spare

At C2 the novel reads freely; only the densest images and the very regional or coined words (bolucas, mitote) still slow you down.

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The average sentence has 13 words, the same as in Niebla (B2), where only one word in fourteen is long. What raises the level is the vocabulary: 12.0 percent of the words here have 9 letters or more, about one in eight, against at most 9.2 percent in the catalog’s B2 books and 9.9 percent or more in its C1 books. Valle-Inclán mixes words from several Latin American countries (baqueanos, briago, mitote, quitrí), Spanish slang of the 1920s and rare literary words, so single words stop you more than sentence length does. Sentences vary little, from about 10 words in the prologue to about 22 in the book El ministro de España. Hence C1. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.

48 927: words
13: words in an average sentence
8-14: hours of reading
1926: Imprenta Rivadeneyra

Imprenta Rivadeneyra, 1926. Project Gutenberg

What it is about, without the ending

Santa Fe de Tierra Firme is the capital of an imaginary republic in the hot lands of Latin America. From an old convent turned into barracks, General Don Santos Banderas, “Tirano Banderas”, who looks like a skull in dark glasses, rules over Indian battalions and spies. On the days of the Fair of Saints and the Dead the opposition moves: Filomeno Cuevas arms his ranch hands, Don Roque Cepeda, “the liberator of the Indian”, speaks to the crowd in the Circo Harris, and the Spanish colony, gathered in its casino, plots to break up the rally. The novel follows that night and the days after it through the barracks, the casino, the circus, the legation and the prisons. How the uprising ends, and what becomes of the Tyrant, is not revealed here.

Compare two places

Tirano Banderas

Primera parte. Sinfonía del trópico. Libro primero. Icono del tirano

, : , , , . , , . , , , .

Segunda parte. Boluca y mitote. Libro primero. Cuarzos ibéricos

, , . , . , , . : , : , , , . , , .

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Project Gutenberg

Let the images pile up

Valle-Inclán builds the Tyrant from pictures (a skull in dark glasses, a sacred crow) rather than from events. Read for the picture first and do not translate every word. The colon here works as a pause, so each colon starts a new image.

Mind the clitic after the verb

Apretábase la plebe keeps the pronoun after the verb, the old word order of this prose. Read “apretábase la plebe” as “la plebe se apretaba” and the sentence opens up. Tap only the words that block the scene.

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Chapters

Translation while you read

The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.

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In a sentence such as “En el Perú había hecho la guerra a los españoles, y de aquellas campañas veníale la costumbre de rumiar la coca”, the old word order (veníale la costumbre) is easier to see in a whole-sentence translation in Reader than word by word.

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Before you read

Is this the original or a learner adaptation?

It is the original, not a learner’s adaptation: Ramón del Valle-Inclán’s complete novel, with the prologue, all seven parts and the epilogue. The text follows the 1926 first edition (Imprenta Rivadeneyra, Madrid) as digitised by Project Gutenberg, with the spelling modernised to current Spanish Academy norms and the regional words kept.

Is there an audiobook?

Tirano Banderas 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 regional and rare words such as baqueanos, quitrí or antiparras.

Can I translate a whole sentence?

Yes, with the Reader plan. In this novel it helps most with the old word order and the long chains of images, for example “de aquellas campañas veníale la costumbre de rumiar la coca”. 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. The 27 sections are short, from about 770 to 2,850 words, so one or two make an evening.

Where does the text get easier?

It is fairly even. In most sections sentences stay between about 10 and 17 words: the prologue is the lightest, at about 10, and the longest sentences are in the book El ministro de España, at about 22. The regional vocabulary is the constant difficulty, so the novel does not get easier as you go.

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. All 27 sections also open from the contents on this page, for example the first book of part one, Icono del tirano, right after the prologue.

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