Italian · Advanced
Read I Malavoglia in Italianwith every sentence explained
English title: The House by the Medlar Tree
Giovanni Verga · 1881
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About the book
I Malavoglia by Giovanni Verga was first published in 1881. In Passage you read the full text in the original Italian, marked advanced and filed under historical fiction. It runs to about 88,200 words.
One boat, one cargo, one storm, and a whole family's fortune hangs in the balance.
In the Sicilian fishing village of Aci Trezza, the Toscano family, known to everyone as the Malavoglia, live in the house by the medlar tree. Old Padron 'Ntoni rules them with proverbs and a fierce belief in hard work and sticking together, like the fingers of one hand.
When his grandson 'Ntoni is called away for military service, the family decides to try a little trade: they buy a load of lupins on credit and send it to sea aboard their boat, the Provvidenza. It is a small gamble, but in a village where everyone watches, gossips and keeps accounts, a single misfortune can change everything.
Giovanni Verga's masterpiece is the cornerstone of Italian realism and is read in every Italian school. Full of village voices and sayings, The House by the Medlar Tree is a moving portrait of people struggling to stay afloat.
- Author
- Giovanni Verga
- First published
- 1881
- Language
- Italian
- Level
- Advanced
- Genre
- Historical Fiction
- Length
- About 88,200 words
How it opens
Un tempo i Malavoglia erano stati numerosi come i sassi della strada vecchia di Trezza; ce n’erano persino ad Ognina, e ad Aci Castello, tutti buona e brava gente di mare, proprio all’opposto di quel che sembrava dal nomignolo, come dev’essere. Veramente nel libro della parrocchia si chiamavano Toscano, ma questo non voleva dir nulla, poichè da che il mondo era mondo, all’Ognina, a Trezza e ad Aci Castello, li avevano sempre conosciuti per Malavoglia, di padre in figlio, che avevano sempre avuto delle barche sull’acqua, e delle tegole al sole.
Reading I Malavoglia in Passage
Passage sets the book as a quiet, paginated reader in Italian. Read at your own pace, and when a sentence stops you, tap it. You get:
- a natural translation of that exact sentence,
- a short note on the grammar, in plain words,
- the key words, which you can save with the sentence they came from,
- all of it in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Turkish or Portuguese, whichever you read best.
It's marked advanced, with richer vocabulary and longer sentences. If it feels heavy, start with an intermediate Italian book and come back to it. The words you save come back later in short review games, so the book keeps teaching after you close it.
