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Tortilla Flat
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Tortilla Flat
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Tortilla Flat
Audiobook7 hours

Tortilla Flat

Written by John Steinbeck

Narrated by John McDonough

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

"Steinbeck is an artist; and he tells stories of these lovable thieves and adulterers with a gentle and poetic purity of heart and of prose."--New York Herald Tribune

Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a Camelot on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur's castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging--men who fiercely resist the corrupting tide of honest toil and civil rectitude. As Steinbeck chronicles their deeds--their multiple lovers, their wonderful brawls, their Rabelaisian wine-drinking--he spins a tale as compelling and ultimately as touched by sorrow as the famous legends of the Round Table, which inspired him.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 13, 2011
ISBN9781101530917
Unavailable
Tortilla Flat
Author

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck (Salinas, 1902 - Nueva York, 1968). Narrador y dramaturgo estadounidense. Estudió en la Universidad de Stanford, pero desde muy joven tuvo que trabajar duramente como albañil, jornalero rural, agrimensor o empleado de tienda. En la década de 1930 describió la pobreza que acompañó a la Depresión económica y tuvo su primer reconocimiento crítico con la novela Tortilla Flat, en 1935. Sus novelas se sitúan dentro de la corriente naturalista o del realismo social americano. Su estilo, heredero del naturalismo y próximo al periodismo, se sustenta sin embargo en una gran carga de emotividad en los argumentos y en el simbolismo presente en las situaciones y personajes que crea, como ocurre en sus obras mayores: De ratones y hombres (1937), Las uvas de la ira (1939) y Al este del Edén (1952). Obtuvo el premio Nobel en 1962.

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Rating: 3.7967032480376766 out of 5 stars
4/5

1,274 ratings41 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Steinbeck has created a world here that I have no direct experience of. Homeless alcoholic hobo males. When Danny inherits a house it becomes a hub for the local drifters who all share in its shelter. These guys are so much more than lonely drifters though, they have a camaraderie and sense of loyalty that is rock solid...if it is decided that someone needs wine then the money is found, loaned, stolen, obtained through the sale of stolen goods and it is provided. It is shared and it is enjoyed. The reason it is needed provides the rationalisation for the crimes committed to obtain it. And it is decided pretty much every day that wine is needed.Sometimes, quite often, this rock solid loyalty is bent for the sake of one of the groups own personal need, but there is always a rock solid reason why this must be so. The excuses and reasoning that each character comes up with is pure comedy. But their situation, however happy they appear in it, is really quite dire. It is a sad story, presented in such a way that makes it seem so normal and so inevitable.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Een redelijk klein boekje, maar hoe hartverwarmend. Een verzameling verhalen over landlopers die zich (door een erfenis) settelen in de Tortilla flat-wijk vlakbij Monterey. Een heel sympathiek portret van een groep havelozen. Droge humor, brede verteltrant.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is Steinbeck's best book. Not his best writing, necessarily, but from the perspective of one who lived in the Salinas Valley and worked on these farms, eking out a marginal existence (until wandering into the digital age, as did we all), I know and love these characters like few others in Steinbeck's work. Each of Steinbeck's novels has its advocates, perfectly understandable, but none has a place in my heart quite like this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this walk along the streets of a culture unfamiliar to me. Steinbeck's description of the "Paisanos" in California is delightful and humorous. Although most people would rejoice upon inheriting real estate from a relative, Danny, one of several friends who come to live together in this story, regards it as a burden. Nonetheless, the friends come to enjoy their new life together until Danny comes to miss his old habits of sleeping in the woods and stealing whatever sustenance he needs. This is a fun read from beginning to end.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    In "Tortilla Flat," Steinbeck takes us to a town inhabited by paesanos, locals with mixed Mexican, Native American, and Caucasian heritage. In the years after World War I, a group of men come back with little purpose in life except to sit in the sun and drink wine, and occasionally take a breather in the local jail. What's been accused of a racist portrayal of these men (an accusation that's not without merit) also lends to a humorous account of a group of friends who have their own set of ethics and societal rules. It's a world where paying the rent is not as important as friendship. (In a hilarious passage, one of Danny's friends who owes him rent talks himself out of giving Danny money because his friend might use it to buy candy for a lady and try some himself, which would be bad for him.) Danny is the character who brings everyone together in the postwar years. One by one, a friend comes to live with him after he inherits two houses when his grandfather dies. Though an heir, Danny (like his friends) are happiest with the simple life; money and property only complicate matters. When Danny buys a gal he's sweet on a vacuum cleaner, a luxury no one else in the neighborhood has, not least because no one has electricity to use such a machine, it causes an uproar. Days are spent by sleeping, drinking, fighting, and chasing women, and the only ambition any of the men has is to scrounge enough coins together to buy some bootleg wine. But there is honor found here and there among the friends. Danny lodgers respect his place as homeowner by not sleeping in his bed. After the friends go to great lengths to try to steal the Pirate's money hoard, they back off when the Pirate himself offers it to them for safekeeping, the honor of being trusted worth more than the money inside the bag. For all the troubling feelings one gets when reading about minorities being portrayed as shiftless, lazy, con artists, he injects these people with enough humanity and humor to temper it. They are alternately naive and clever, untrustworthy and honest, lusty and chaste. But there is something kind of noble about their lives, the way they find their greatest happiness in social interaction instead of riches and property. Perhaps Steinbeck idealizes their poverty too much, but tales in "Torilla Flat" show that humanity is still present even when wealth is not.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tortilla Flat, by John Steinbeck (read 16 Aug 2016) This is the 8th book I've read by Steinbeck, I read his The Grapes of Wrath on 17 Mar 1949, and then read In Dubious Battle on 30 May 1971, Of Mice and Men on 22 Jan 1996, Cup of Gold on 22 June 197, The Red Pony on 6 June 2000, East of Eden on 21 Feb 2001, The Pearl on 16 March 2003, and Cannery Row on 19 June 2006. Tortilla Flat is smoothly written, tells evocatively of Danny, who returns from soldiering in World War One to find his grandfather has died and left hin two houses in the Tortilla Flat section of Monterey, Cal. His friends gradually move in with him and their carefrree l;ife, devoted to wine drinking and loose living is related with sympathetic words, often evoking laughter in the reader. I could not admire the lifestyle depicted but the account is somewhat heart-warming.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Een redelijk klein boekje, maar hoe hartverwarmend. Een verzameling verhalen over landlopers die zich (door een erfenis) settelen in de Tortilla flat-wijk vlakbij Monterey. Een heel sympathiek portret van een groep havelozen. Droge humor, brede verteltrant.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Kind of sad
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I don't recall when I first read Tortilla Flat but it must have been during my teen years. I didn't remember it as a favorite and never re-read it until now. There's a certain amount of charm to the cast of characters here, a ragtag group of layabout paisanos led by Danny who live in the hilly area above the town of Monterey. The manner of storytelling, with a mimicry of King Arthur's knights of the round table also adds a bit of charm. One can only listen to so many thees and thous however. My personal problem with the book is that I just can't identify with the drunken no-account lets steal the neighbors chickens, throw rocks through the windows on Alvarado street life, and the "charm" here wears thin. These guys would do anything but work. There are some interesting little vignettes and character sketches in here that pretty much save the story but I had my fill of drinking yourself into a stupor until the house burns down pretty early on.In a sense I'm breaking my own rules on reading Steinbeck where I try not to put a late 20th/early 21st century sensibility on early 1930's life, but it is what it is. I'm pretty sure I felt this same way in the 60's or 70's when I first encountered this. These guys are serious alcoholics who drink gallons of wine and steal and slum their way for more wine or brandy.Danny goes looney toons near the end and destroys his little paisano Camelot.I listened to much of the story via an audiobook narrated by John McDonough. He does an excellent job reading this with a relaxed pace just about perfect for the story. It works well listened to in small chunks since it is an episodic story. I did a bit of spot reading/recapping as well as reading the last portion of the story from a physical paper book.There are better Steinbeck stories than this one.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Tortilla Flat is loosely drawn from the Arthurian Legend and features Danny as King Arthur and a group of his paisano friends as his court. As with the medieval legends, Danny and his friends are at times gallant, ornery, lazy, quirky, moody, foolish, and brilliant in their simple way. The characters are all lovable and comic even when they are doing horrible things that they shouldn't be loved for. Likewise, the book itself was lovable and a joy to read even when there are parts that should have been uncomfortable. Steinbeck has a wonderful ability to take the grotesque sides of us and make them lovable. In this case, he took the poverty of people living on the outskirts of Monterey, California and all of the poor decisions and bad things that they might do in their circumstance and made them both heroic and comical. This is the brilliance of Steinbeck, and this is a very good book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Best novel in the world. Simply told but will haunt me forever.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The story of Danny and his freeloading friends who you would never want for fiends in this world or the next. How they use their friend Danny and steal and drink themselves drunk through life.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    My favorite of John Steinbeck's works - his paisanos are role models for us all. Dolores and her vacuum can always make me cry, and the thud of bags of beans on Teresina Cortez's porch always makes me cry with pride.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous!!! This story takes me to another place and time and immerses me in it. I was there with these wonderful characters through all their trials and tribulations, culminating in a mythological climax. A perfect story.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The ne'r do well paisanos of Tortilla Flat, a piney, ramshackle wood above the shoreside Monterrey, are colorfully featured here. Danny's little house becomes shelter for his buddies, all of whom live day by day on pawned and pilfered items - mostly traded for remnant food and gallon jars of wine. Chapters are vignettes focused on another adventure, usually introducing another paisano to the fold. Sparks of wit and common-man philosophy keep the stories lively. Steinbeck is one of my tried and trues. I read this in his Library of America collection of stories, 1932-37.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tortilla Flat is the rambling, episodic story of a group of friends living in a poor Hispanic village near Monterey, California shortly after the end of WWI. Mostly they drink a lot of wine, steal or scam money to get more wine, take up with various women, fight each other, and support each other in their own idiosyncratic ways.It's hard to know quite what to make of this one. It's certainly not what I expected after Of Mice and Men, which is the only other Steinbeck I've read so far. The tone is much lighter and more comic, and very drolly written... except when it's not, as there are moments, especially near the end, where the mood shifts and there are glimpses of odd, hard-to-make-out depths and difficult-to-pin-down emotions. It's interesting, but it's hard to know exactly what it all adds up to. And even though Steinbeck treats his characters with genuine humanity and affection, it's hard to escape the fact that they echo some really unpleasant stereotypes, and it's impossible not to feel a little uncomfortable about that. But, man, that Steinbeck guy could write. There are some marvelously crafted, insightful little turns of phrase here. Nothing flowery, nothing that calls attention to itself, just perfect little pieces of prose, gently doing their job of telling the story. Which probably makes the novel worthwhile all by itself.Rating: This one is unbelievably hard to rate. I keep trying to give it less than a 4/5, but I just can't get myself to do it, apparently because I've fallen just that hard for the guy's writing style. So I guess 4/5 it is. But maybe with an asterisk.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Steinbeck has created a world here that I have no direct experience of. Homeless alcoholic hobo males. When Danny inherits a house it becomes a hub for the local drifters who all share in its shelter. These guys are so much more than lonely drifters though, they have a camaraderie and sense of loyalty that is rock solid...if it is decided that someone needs wine then the money is found, loaned, stolen, obtained through the sale of stolen goods and it is provided. It is shared and it is enjoyed. The reason it is needed provides the rationalisation for the crimes committed to obtain it. And it is decided pretty much every day that wine is needed.Sometimes, quite often, this rock solid loyalty is bent for the sake of one of the groups own personal need, but there is always a rock solid reason why this must be so. The excuses and reasoning that each character comes up with is pure comedy. But their situation, however happy they appear in it, is really quite dire. It is a sad story, presented in such a way that makes it seem so normal and so inevitable.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was Steinbeck's first big success, but it came saddled with misinterpretation. He wasn't pleased with critics who thought he was making fun of the lower class in Monterey, California. I fell into the same trap of viewing it as satire, but these characters receive too much narrative respect and the descriptive passages are too beautifully done not to grant there's something deeper. There's a nobility in their readinesss to take life as it comes, and in the care they take to justify their actions. A parallel to the story of King Arthur's round table is clearly stated in the first chapter, and there's reminders of this when one character or another suddenly spouts dialogue in the fashion of "thees" and "thous", entirely unremarked upon, before lapsing back into normal language. There's also a parallel in the novel's plotting, where each chapter seems like another adventure of these 'knights' and often introduces a new member of the party. The conclusion is therefore apt and inevitable, but tragedy has its flip side and this novel is often just plain funny (the vaccuum cleaner; the plot for pirate treasure; the minor crime wave; etc). Pilon especially is entertaining, and even characters seen in passing can inspire a chuckle (the shopkeeper who puts out his 'Back in 5 minutes' sign and goes home for the day). It's funny because it's real, but all good things must inevitably reach their end.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My first book finished in 2015 and one I quite enjoyed. I do appreciate Steinbeck's writing and definitely will seek out more by him in the future. So far I only had read [The Pearl], which I equally liked."This is the story of Danny and of Danny's friends and of Danny's house." “No, when you speak of Danny's house you are understood to mean a unit of which the parts are men, from which came sweetness and joy, philanthropy and, in the end, a mystic sorrow.” Tortilla Flat is a picaresque novella made up of seventeen loosely linked episodes. I felt that this anecdotal style highlighted the dire predicaments of a life in poverty and what it actually means to live on the brink of survival.“This is the story” of a group of destitute paisanos who aren't interested in living by the system, which in the 1920's meant status and comfort, but prefer a carefree life, mainly wine, enough food and woman. They keep their dignity within a subculture, where conventional values are replaced by values of their own. Danny is a young man who returns from the First World War and discovers that his uncle has left him two houses. Danny is someone who hasn't done much with his life and actually hasn't got the desire to do so anyway. The houses elevate his social status in Tortilla Flat, but any kind of snobbery is quite alien to Danny. He becomes the “core” for a gradually expanding group of friends around him. We meet Pilon, Jesus Marie, Big Joe Portagee, Pablo and Pirate. Most of them share his aversion to any regulated activities, everything is shared in Danny's house fraternally.The paisanos life is poor, but on the other hand it is rich and beautiful, Danny is what holds them together, despite all the economic problems. Life is not planned ahead, lived daily and intense. This rascal's trump card is their friendship, maintained humanity, in an environment of hopeless poverty and humility. Life is about survival and to preserve their own dignity. Even so that most of them are thieves and carpetbaggers, they are portrayed in a manner that you can't do anything else, but like them and feel with them. “I will go out to The One who can fight. I will find The Enemy who is worthy of Danny.” These are Danny's last words! Danny was the groups core, their bright light and when this finally expires, the group scatters like the leaves in the wind. For some reason some parts made me chuckle and reminded me of Neil Gaimans [American Gods] and his [Anansi Boys], and other parts reminded me of “one for all, all for one” from the [Three Musketeers] by Dumas.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    With that title, I don’t mean to make light of John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat. Quite to the contrary. This short novel — which, in my youth, I once knew, read and loved as a ‘novella ’— I just read again. And loved again!

    Steinbeck may be as close to a poet (albeit, in prose) as any writer this country has ever produced. But he’s more than a consummate prose writer. As a humorist, I believe he ranks right up there with Mark Twain — or maybe just a smidgen beneath. In any case, both men were superb observers (and chroniclers) of human nature. Both paid homage to Thomas Malory (of King Arthur fame): Steinbeck, with this novelette; Twain, with A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. And both carried on a tradition that would’ve done Malory proud.

    As Thomas Fensch (who wrote the Introduction to the Penguin Classics version I just read) suggests, “…Steinbeck values the Arthurian legends and the paisanos too highly to demean either. By adding the language of the paisanos and their convoluted moral code to his novel, he elevates them toward Arthurian status, without demeaning them or the tales of the knights that he was captivated by throughout much of his life.”

    Read Tortilla Flat for the unmitigated fun of it. Unlike Flannery O’Connor (whose Wise Blood I recently read and reviewed), I don’t believe Steinbeck looks down upon his rough-‘n’-tumble characters; if anything, he idolized them.

    We should, too. They’re all knights errant of a different — and much more contemporary — century. And given the not dissimilar economic climates of Steinbeck’s novelette and our own times, I would suggest that Tortilla Flat is indeed both topical and relevant.

    Now, on to Cannery Row!

    RRB
    07/11/13
    Brooklyn, NY

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    From the Preface: "This is the story of Danny and of Danny's friends and of Danny's house. It is a story of how these three become one thing, so that... when you speak of Danny's house you are understood to mean a unit of which the parts are men, from which came sweetness and joy, philanthropy and, in the end, a mystic sorrow."In his first commercial success, the 1935 “Tortilla Flat” shares the tales of Danny and his friends in their adventurous lives of the self-chosen unemployment while living in two houses that Danny inherited from an uncle. Thematically, Steinbeck himself compared Danny and his friends to Arthur and his knights while the house is the round table with an oath of devotion expressed via food (and wine). Despite owning the houses raised Danny’s status on the impoverished neighborhood, they were burdens that Danny never wanted. Perhaps it’s my own mistaken expectations, but mischiefs far dominated philanthropy. Act for act, though they may be loyal to each other, they were otherwise bullies, drunks, thieves, and cheats. I developed no affinity for any character except the slow-witted Pirate and his 5 loyal dogs. The first half of the book drew this group together, while the second half had random tales of their adventures leading up to the spectacular ending that then disbanded the group. I was truly glad that Steinbeck took the ending to the dark side giving it a rightful finality. While there are parallels to “Canary Row” with the camaraderie amongst transients, “Tortilla Flat” is far better organized with an ending that left impressions of bleakness, rage, and depression. Though I had little affinity to the characters, there is an undeniable charm to their simple existence. Material value, a vacuum – a shiny object that doesn’t function without electricity in their area, caused an uproar, and the reveal that it lacked a motor implies an emptiness of such modern conveniences. The artfulness of his writing emerged with implied images of action but not the exact action itself – on stealing food: “They did not take the basket, but always afterward their hats and their shirts were stained with deviled eggs.” This is a solid worthy read, and I pity the nine publishers that had turned it down. :) Some quotes:On kindness:“Out of some deep pouch in his soul Jesus Maria drew kindness that renewed itself by withdrawal.”On being 50 – yikes:“Her mother, that ancient, dried, toothless one, relict of a past generation, was nearly fifty.”On confessions:“Teresina went often to confession. She was the despair of Father Ramon. Indeed he had seen that while her knees, her hands, and her lips did penance for an old sin, her modest and provocative eyes, flashing under drawn lashes, laid the foundation for a new one.”On sexual prowess:“A dying organism is often observed to be capable of extraordinary endurance and strength… When any living organism is attacked, its whole function seems to aim toward reproduction…. No one kept actual count, and afterward, naturally, no lady would willingly admit that she had been ignored; so that the reputed prowess of Danny may be somewhat overstated. One tenth of it would be an overstatement for anyone in the world.”On impending doom:From Danny: “’Am I alone in the world? Will no one fight with me? ...Then I will go out to The One who can fight. I will find The Enemy who is worthy of Danny!’”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Frankly, I do not know what to think about John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat. On the one hand, this 1935 novel is an entertaining look at life through the eyes of a bunch of men whose biggest concern in life is where their next bottle of wine is coming from; on the other, the novel tends to leave the impression that everyone living in the Tortilla Flat section of Monterey, California, is shiftless and lazy. And that impression, considering that all the characters in Tortilla Flat are (or would be called in today’s terms) Hispanics, is not one that leaves the reader very comfortable.Danny and his friends are actually “paisanos.” As Steinbeck puts it, a paisano “is a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican and assorted Caucasian bloods. His ancestors have lived in California for a hundred or two years…when questioned concerning his race, he indignantly claims pure Spanish blood and rolls up his sleeve to show that the soft inside of his arm is nearly white.” Danny’s crew has more in common than the love of drink. He and several of his friends, in a moment of drunken patriotism, joined the military at the outbreak of World War I, and now they have returned one-by-one to Tortilla Flat to resume the lives they temporarily abandoned. The boys had varying degrees of success during the war. Danny himself never left the States, others of them saw the fighting, and at least one of them spent most of the war in the brig. But now they are home and they have resumed a shiftless lifestyle that sees them working only long enough to earn the next bottle or two of wine. Then Danny receives something of a mixed blessing when he inherits the two Tortilla Flat houses owned by his elderly grandfather. His neighborhood prestige and status are immediately enhanced, but Danny is quick to feel the burdens of property ownership - and, rather than being excited by his windfall, Danny is troubled and unhappy. It is only when his friends begin to move into his houses with him that Danny is finally able to settle into his new lifestyle, but even then he misses the carefree (and often violent) lifestyle that he lived before the war. Danny simply misses his old life:“When Danny thought of the old lost time, he could taste again how good the stolen food was, and he longed for that old time again. Since his inheritance had lifted him, he had not fought often. He had been drunk, but not adventurously so. Always the weight of the house was upon him; always the responsibility to his friends.”Danny and his friends may be living lives filled with personal tragedy, but they live and love exactly as they wish. They are their own men and, although most of us would condemn their habits and their lifestyles, they are happy. But looking at the novle through today’s eyes, I still don’t know what to think of Tortilla Flat. Is it insensitive and unfair, or is it simply a well-written product of its times? Each of us, I suppose, will have to decide that for ourselves.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "This is the story of Danny and of Danny's friends and of Danny's house."

    And with that first line, I realized why Steinbeck is one of the greatest American writers. His stories are direct, no pretenses, to the point, yet he manages to capture a snapshot of life that sucks you into the story. He did this with Grapes and East of Eden remarkably and he did it with this story as well. So that even though you have no clue about what sort of people lived in Monterey CA in the 30s or even care, you will after reading this. If you met these characters under normal circumstances, you would most likely be disgusted, but Steinbeck makes the reader fall in love with them. Just when you think they can't possibly sink any lower to score a jug of wine, which is their primary focus of life, one of them does something that is so sweet and you realize the depth of the human condition, that inner struggle between good and evil.

    But that's almost going too deep, because if nothing else, this story is funny. Laugh-out-loud, read-passages-to-whoever-happens-to-be-in-the-room-with-you-and-is-patient-enough-to-listen funny. And again, Steinbeck has this ability in his humor to make the reader pause and take it in. It's not an in-your-face kind of humor, but more subtle and non-assuming. Sometimes you just want to read a good, old-fashioned story and Steinbeck is the master storyteller.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Laugh-out-loud funny in many parts for me. The characters are real; they will take up physical space (one of Steinbeck's gifts to his readers). Anyone who has friends, faithfully-flawed and honestly-opportunistic or otherwise, will be able to appreciate the subtlety displayed in the interaction between the inhabitants of Tortilla Flat.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    [Tortilla Flat] is another piece of irresistible [Steinbeck] writing. The odd part is I wanted to resist. It's a story about Danny and his friends and Danny's house. They're all paisanos, i.e. "a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican, and assorted Caucasian bloods" whose "ancestors have lived in California for a hundred or two years." Danny inherits a house, two actually, from his viejo, and his friends gather there with him. What I didn't like: the paisanos on Tortilla Flat don't really seem real, and the portrayal is far from flattering. The story is more like a parody fairy tale. Possible Spoilers: Danny and his friends repeatedly steal from the inhabitants of Tortilla Flat, but nonetheless are viewed as harmless and charming. Really? Danny gets violent and is still found charming. Really? And I didn't like the racial epithets. Because they're spread around, they're, I'm sure, supposed to be considered acceptable. But does someone trying to make money always have to be called a "Jew"? Do the Sicilian fisherman really have no problem with Danny spewing racist insults at them? Would paisanos really appreciate being portrayed like this?Danny and his friends drink all the time, and seem to live to find more wine. They steal all the time, and we hear virtually zero about the effect on their victims. When Danny inflates the status of a young woman with a gift and then later he tires of her and his friends steal it back, we hear nothing more about her. None of this sounds particularly appealing, does it?So why are we charmed? Ah, that wizardly Steinbeck. "Then Jesus Maria, in a frenzy of gratefulness, made a rash promise. It was the grappa that did it, and the night of the fire, and all the deviled eggs. He felt that he had received great gifts, and he wanted to distribute a gift. 'It shall be our burden and our duty to see that there is always food in the house for Danny', he declaimed. 'Never shall our friend go hungry.'Pilon and Pablo looked up in alarm, but the thing was said; a beautiful and generous thing. No man could with impunity destroy it. Even Jesus Maria understood, after what was said, the magnitude of his statement. They could only hope that Danny would forget it."The endearing descriptions of them, their lovely way of expressly themselves, their grand elevated emotions, and the practical hope that Danny will forget it, occur in different forms throughout the book. We find ourselves rooting for them despite their repeated reprehensible behavior. In part it's because we love rascals who live outside the 9 to 5 daily grinds that the rest of us have to live - wouldn't it be wonderful to get up at noon and then go out and sit on the porch near the rose bush and let the sun warm you? To burn pine cones in the fireplace at night and talk contently about the village gossip with your simpatico friends? In part it's the intrigue of how are they going to find food and the beloved wine day after day without gainful employment?In part it's the hypnotizing effect of Steinbeck's writing, and the contrarian way of life that finds a silver lining everywhere. For example, when Danny briefly gets inspired to clean a begrimed window in the house, he is quickly persuaded not to do it:"The window remained as it was; and as time passed, as fly after fly went to feed the spider family with his blood and left his huskish body in the webs against the glass, as dust adhered to dust, the bedroom took on a pleasant obscurity which made it possible to sleep in a dusky light even at noonday."At times the grandiloquence in this fairy tale reminded me of Don Quixote, living a different reality than the rest of us, and at times of the simple but lofty statements in a Hemingway novel. But the paisanos' actions are rarely anything other than self-serving and detrimental to others. Possible Spoiler As in [Cannery Row], one of their noblest gestures is throwing a big party for Danny which, as in [Cannery Row], ends in disaster. A difference is the lovable mugs in [Cannery Row] were sensitive about hurting others, and tried to be harmless. The group in this one are charming rogues, but for me their one-for-all and all-for-one insularity left me uncomfortable and a bit resentful that Steinbeck uses his wizardry to exalt them. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to thumb his nose at us, but throughout he seems to be saying, see, I can make you love even these reprobates. And he succeeds. Maybe there's a message somewhere in that, but it's a discomfiting one.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Tortilla Flat isn't so much a novel as a set of interconnected stories. A lot has been made of how it is supposedly based on the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, but that is only true in the same sense as (and to a lesser extent than), say, Joyce's Ulysses is based on Homer's Odyssey.*Spoiler Alert*It tells the story of a group of bums, one of whom, Danny, inherits a couple of houses from his uncle. He rents the second house to his friends, but they accidentally burn it down while drunk and all move in with him. They literally do nothing but drink wine, and try to figure out ways to get more wine (without having to pay for it).At the end, Danny's friends actually work for an entire day(!) so they can throw him a big party to try and get him out of the funk he's fallen into. It works, and at the party Danny becomes his old self again. But, when the party gets out of hand and turns violent, Danny is killed in a drunken accident. His friends do not attend his funeral, instead burning his house down on purpose.In spite of all this, or rather because of it, Steinbeck clearly wants us to admire these characters. He is not being satirical when he compares them to Arthur and his knights. Hell, Danny isn't just Arthur, he's practically Jesus...after all, Christ and his disciples were basically a bunch of bums (who loved wine) too!As you can probably guess, I'm not very sympathetic to the view of life Steinbeck presents here. But Tortilla Flat is at least better as literature than, say, The Grapes of Wrath (though not as good as, say, East of Eden). You'd be slightly better off reading Steinbeck's later work Cannery Row, though, which is basically the same book, but some of the stories are a bit more amusing and the ending isn't quite as horrible (though it's nearly as pointless).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    “This is the story of Danny and of Danny's friends and of Danny's house.” This is our introduction to the “Paisanos”. A shaggy group of men; shiftless, hard-drinking and mostly good-natured, living aimless lives, in a small house on a dusty hill above Monterey California. They work occasionally, but mostly hunker in the shade, philosophize and devise ways to acquire the next gallon of wine.This book put Steinbeck on the map, but it is lighter and more humorous in tone, than the hard-hitting socially conscious work, he will soon turn to. It is a pleasant tale, brimming with a cast of colorful and charming characters and I recommend it."The afternoon came down as imperceptibly as age comes to a happy man. A little gold entered into the sunlight.”
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thoroughly enjoyed this book which describes another dimension of the town of Monterey, California, and the "paisanos" that lived their lives there in the early 20th century. Steinbeck is an absolute master of dialogue, which is realistic and intriguing, and this book is a great example of his art. The only reason I gave it 4 stars, and not 5 was perhaps the scope not on the same level as his other tour-de-force novels "The Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden".
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was the first Steinbeck book I've ever read, and wow. It was PHENOMENAL. I loved it. It's funny, touching, and always left me wanting more. The short story format is so perfect, and I found myself trying not to laugh out loud on the crowded train at several points. Great - FANASTIC - book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While I can honestly say I have never left a Steinbeck book without enjoying the experience, this may be my least favorite I've read of his so far. That said, however, I still enjoyed his tales of the paisanos. Through his words, you experience a kinship that is not generally found amongst many. A willful dependence of these friends to Danny and their simultaneous admiration and adoration for him. While he may not be something to aspire to, they can not help but respect him(even when he "flies off the handle"). Although it has been thought of to cast a certain group of people in a negative light, to me the landscape/scenery is the main point and these just happen to be the people that he associates with them. If he had not been so obsessed and absorbed with California, the story could have worked in another location with different people just the same. It seems that in writing this he felt a kinship that to him was inherent with his writing without thinking of the full ramifications.I can't say I have studied Steinbeck in great detail, so I may be way off in some of my assumptions, but it seems from reading these stories as well as Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday that he is truly devoted to the landscape and those found there. It may not be historical fiction, but it was truth to him. Some good stories that read very easily and add to a cohesive collection of his.