Level B1 · Chapter 58
The Mistakes in the Book
Don Quixote and Sancho pick holes in the book that tells their adventures. One complains about the author, the other about what was done to his donkey.
What you will learn
- Judge something with es raro que, es lógico que, es una lástima que.
- Complain about a mistake without accusing anybody in particular.
- Tell when an impersonal formula asks for the subjunctive and when it does not.
Before you read
Almost the whole lesson is people passing judgement on a book. Watch what happens to the verb after es raro que, es lógico que, es imposible que and es una lástima que. It is not the tense you would expect, and the change is not optional. One formula in the lesson behaves differently from all the others, and finding it before the grammar section tells you is the point of this lesson.The story in easy Spanish
El bachiller Sansón Carrasco cenaba en casa de don Quijote y hablaba del libro impreso.
The graduate Sansón Carrasco was having supper at Don Quixote’s house and talking about the printed book.
Sancho no paraba de hacer preguntas, porque quería saberlo todo sobre aquella historia suya.
Sancho would not stop asking questions, because he wanted to know everything about that story of his.
«Es raro que el autor sepa cosas que pasaron de noche y sin testigos», dijo el caballero.
"It is odd that the author knows things that happened at night and with no witnesses," said the knight.
«Es imposible que un moro de Toledo nos viera aquella vez en Sierra Morena».
"It is impossible that a Moor from Toledo saw us that time in the Sierra Morena."
Sansón contestó que los historiadores tienen sus fuentes y que nadie se las pide.
Sansón answered that historians have their sources and that nobody asks them for them.
Añadió que no es extraño que un sabio conozca lo que ningún hombre ha visto.
He added that it is not strange for a scholar to know what no man has seen.
Sancho tenía otra queja, más práctica, que llevaba guardada desde la primera página.
Sancho had another complaint, a more practical one, that he had been saving since the first page.
En el libro le robaban el burro sin que el autor contara nunca cómo.
In the book his donkey was stolen without the author ever explaining how.
Unas páginas después el animal volvía a aparecer debajo de él, como si nada.
A few pages later the animal turned up underneath him again, as if nothing had happened.
«Es una lástima que se hayan equivocado en eso», dijo el escudero muy serio.
"It is a pity that they got that wrong," said the squire, very solemnly.
«Es lógico que la gente se ría de mí, porque yo me río el primero».
"It makes sense that people laugh at me, because I am the first to laugh."
«Pero que se rían de mi rucio ya me parece demasiado», añadió sin sonreír.
"But laughing at my grey donkey seems too much to me," he added without smiling.
El bachiller reconoció que el libro tenía fallos, aunque defendió a su autor.
The graduate admitted that the book had flaws, though he defended its author.
Explicó que en una historia tan larga es normal que se pierdan detalles pequeños.
He explained that in a story that long it is normal for small details to get lost.
Después dijo una frase que a don Quijote le gustó muchísimo aquella noche.
Then he said a line that Don Quixote liked enormously that night.
No hay libro tan malo que no tenga dentro alguna cosa buena.
There is no book so bad that it has nothing good inside it.
Don Quijote la repitió despacio, para que Sancho la aprendiera de memoria.
Don Quixote repeated it slowly, so that Sancho would learn it by heart.
Luego preguntó si era posible que se escribiera una segunda parte de la obra.
Then he asked whether it was possible that a second part of the work would be written.
Sansón dijo que sí, que era muy posible, y que los lectores ya la pedían.
Sansón said yes, that it was quite possible, and that readers were already asking for it.
Contó que el autor andaba buscándola por todas partes, sin encontrarla todavía.
He said the author was going around looking for it everywhere, without finding it yet.
A don Quijote se le puso la cara de otro hombre al oír aquello.
Don Quixote’s face turned into another man’s face when he heard that.
Si hacía falta una segunda parte, alguien tenía que salir a buscar las aventuras.
If a second part was needed, somebody had to go out and look for the adventures.
Era necesario que él volviera al camino antes de que el autor se cansara.
It was necessary for him to take to the road again before the author got tired.
Se levantó de la mesa muy contento, aunque no dijo lo que estaba pensando.
He got up from the table very pleased, though he did not say what he was thinking.
Sancho lo miró y entendió que su rucio iba a caminar otra vez.
Sancho looked at him and understood that his donkey was going to be walking again.
Aquella noche nadie durmió bien en aquella casa, ni el amo ni el criado.
That night nobody slept well in that house, neither the master nor the servant.
Vocabulary
What goes wrong
- el fallo
- the flaw
- el error
- the error
- la queja
- the complaint
- el descuido
- the oversight
- equivocarse
- to get it wrong
- faltar
- to be missing
- perderse
- to get lost
- corregir
- to correct
Judging a story
- raro
- odd
- lógico
- reasonable
- normal
- normal
- imposible
- impossible
- una lástima
- a pity
- una pena
- a shame
- necesario
- necessary
- seguro
- certain
Who tells and who argues
- el testigo
- the witness
- la fuente
- the source
- el sabio
- the scholar
- el historiador
- the historian
- reconocer
- to admit
- defender
- to defend
- quejarse
- to complain
- reírse de
- to laugh at
Es raro que and the subjunctive
Es raro que el autor sepa esas cosas.
Es una lástima que se hayan equivocado.
Es verdad que el libro tiene fallos.
Spanish has a large family of ready-made openings of the shape es plus adjective plus que. They let you comment on a fact without owning the opinion: nobody says I think, the sentence just declares that the thing is odd, or logical, or a pity. Almost all of them take the subjunctive, and the exceptions form one tidy group.
1. The default: subjunctive
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Es raro que el autor lo sepa. | It is odd that the author knows it. |
| Es lógico que la gente se ría. | It makes sense that people laugh. |
| Es normal que se pierdan detalles. | It is normal for details to get lost. |
| Es una lástima que se hayan equivocado. | It is a pity they got it wrong. |
| Es necesario que salga otra vez. | He needs to set out again. |
| Es posible que se escriba otra parte. | A second part may be written. |
| Es imposible que nos viera. | There is no way he saw us. |
Notice the last row. When the comment is about something already past, the subjunctive goes past too: es imposible que nos viera, es una lástima que se hayan equivocado. The formula stays in the present because the judgement is being made now.
2. The exception: statements of fact
A handful of these openings do not judge anything. They assert that something is the case, and those take the indicative.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Es verdad que el libro tiene fallos. | It is true the book has flaws. |
| Es evidente que lo han leído. | It is obvious they have read it. |
| Está claro que quiere salir. | It is clear he wants to leave. |
| Es seguro que vendrá. | He is certain to come. |
The short version of the rule: if the opening tells you the fact is real, use the indicative. If it does anything else at all, comment, wish, doubt, evaluate, use the subjunctive. And the moment you make one of these negative it flips: no es verdad que tenga fallos, because denying a fact stops asserting it.
3. No que, no subjunctive
All of this only happens when a new subject appears after que. With no new subject, Spanish uses a plain infinitive and the problem disappears.
| with a subject | with no subject |
|---|---|
| Es necesario que él salga. | Es necesario salir. |
| Es raro que Sancho se queje. | Es raro quejarse tanto. |
| Es mejor que lo digas tú. | Es mejor decirlo ahora. |
An author correcting himself in public
The complaint Sancho makes here is real, and the mistake is real. In the first part, printed in 1605, the donkey is stolen by Ginés de Pasamonte in chapter 23, and then a few pages later Sancho is riding it again with no explanation whatsoever. It was a printing-house muddle as much as an authorial one, and readers noticed immediately. The second edition tried to patch it by inserting a hasty paragraph about the theft, which only made the timeline worse.
What Cervantes does in 1615 is the interesting part. He does not quietly fix it. He gives the complaint to Sancho, in front of the graduate who has read the book, and lets the character grumble about the author who invented him. A few chapters later Sancho is asked to explain the whole business and gives an account so confused that it settles nothing. The error stays in, and the discussion of the error becomes one of the funniest scenes in the novel.
This is a habit of the second part rather than a one-off. Cervantes had ten years of readers between the two books, and he wrote the second one as a reply to them. Objections about the interpolated novellas, about the beatings, about Sancho’s vocabulary, all of it comes back inside the fiction as something a character says out loud. The book has grown a skin of criticism and absorbed it.
Cervantes in the original
no hay historia humana en el mundo que no tenga sus altibajos
there is no human history in the world that does not have its ups and downs
Don Quixote says this in II, 3, when Sansón reports that some readers wish the authors had left out a few of the countless beatings the knight takes. It is a defence of his own book disguised as a general truth about history, which is very much his manner. Grammatically it is the lesson in miniature: no hay X que no tenga, a negative existential followed by a relative clause in the subjunctive, because the thing being denied does not exist and therefore cannot take an indicative. The word altibajos is a compound of alto and bajo, originally the rise and fall of a piece of ground, and it survives untouched in modern Spanish for the ups and downs of a life, a career or a marriage. The line is often quoted alongside the one about there being no book so bad that it has nothing good in it, which Cervantes puts in another mouth much later, in II, 59, when two gentlemen are discussing the false sequel.