Thy life is not thine own to govern, Danny, for it controls other lives. See how thy friends suffer! Spring to life, Danny, that thy friends may live again!Steinbeck obviously models his tale of Danny and his comrades in Tortilla Flat after Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. He never hid his infatuation with the stories of King Arthur and his knights. Nor did he hide his partiality toward an idea which describes a community as an organism. With his chapter epigraphs and little mini-stories expounding the adventures of Danny and his knights, he mirrors Malory's work - but not in title. Where Malory chose to title his work by referencing one person, Steinbeck references an entire community thus entangling his idea of an organic world with the ideas presented by Malory.He describes adventurous episodes with Danny, Steinbeck's Arthur, Pilon, Pablo, Jesus Maria, Pirate and Joe Portagee - his knights. Some critics have chastised Steinbeck's representation of Mexican-Americans in California after the first world war. He renders these men as childish in their behavior and logically inept, animalistic in their drinking habits and perhaps lazy in comparison to the prototypical American ideology. Yet he does not mock them. In fact, it seems that Steinbeck might actually envy them - their simple ways and pure hearts. While we read about their wasted days on the front porch, their liberal sense of theft, their obsessive addiction to wine - gallons of it at a time - and their immature thought processes, we must note their pure spirit, their innocent drive to perform good deeds according to their seemingly backwards logic.While Steinbeck associates these characters with a particular group of people with whom he felt personally familiar, one may notice their characteristics in all people - rich, poor, black, white, yellow, brown, male, female - it doesn't matter. A rich man might just as easily employ flawed, self-serving logic while contemplating an ethical conundrum. Women can embark on selfless humanitarian missions as quickly as any of these paisanos. We all share these same tendencies. I think Steinbeck brought his ideas out of the clouds and presented them through the lives of a familiar people who share the same human characteristics as the rest of us.I particularly enjoyed Steinbeck's moral crusade against possession. These men, homeless and penniless, enjoy their lives free from the constraints of material responsibility. When Danny inherited his grandfather's two homes, Pilon noticed:...that the worry of property was settling on Danny's face. No more in life would that face be free of care. No more would Danny break windows now that he had windows of his own to break. Pilon had been right - he had been raised among his fellows. His shoulders had straightened to withstand the complexity of life. But one cry of pain escaped him before he left for all time his old and simple life.Now Danny would have to endure a life secluded from his friends, burdened with enforcing rent, expecting payment for goods, feeling anger because of damaged property, etc. And his friends would have to endure that nagging feeling of debt to one they see as a brother. One might settle for calling this an eventuality of growing up, but, as Pablo notes, these things impair everyone's happiness. More than ownership, they long to live happily. They experienced happiness sleeping in the woods. They felt free. Now they find themselves chained to obligation.While living among his free-loading friends, Danny silently contemplates his role and the reader senses a quiet struggle within him. But he does not bring his friends into the fight. In fact, when they burn down his second house, he feels relief because he no longer feels the weight of that house nor the obligation to enforce rent for it. With the house gone, he no longer feels alienated from his friends. Danny, suddenly burdened with these things and separated from those with whom he identified himself, seems to struggle internally about his very identity. But in the meantime, his friends do not indulge a sense of advantage over Danny. We see this through their desire to live as noble men and their continuous search to repay Danny for his grace, even though they fail miserably with every attempt. I think they innately understand that money and materials do not appropriately repay a man for providing them with invaluable happiness and friendship. Besides, possession and money drive Danny to burdensome sadness. Danny's friends innocently adopt him as their leader, accept his grace and live to make him happy - not from a sense of obligation or gratitude, but from awe. They happily and proudly call him friend which influences their love for one another. In this way, Danny exemplifies Arthurian leadership and fosters the intimate integration of people after their spiritual divorce wrought by possession.However, though we would like to abandon possession and responsibility, these things develop the bonds between the knights. If we remove the concept of possession from this social construct, gratitude becomes irrelevant along with kindness, generosity and sacrifice. Without possession, we cannot qualify Danny as a genuinely good and caring man. We cannot praise him for his tendency to abandon the complexities of ownership and his ability to unite these paisanos rather than divide them through debt. He redeems a debt of love for his generosity and blindness to advantage, which the paisanos would not feel without possession. Yet we ought to note how Danny integrates these men unintentionally. His repulsion toward responsibility influences these events, not his conscientious choices of charity. While he struggles within, his friends enjoy a spiritual awakening of brotherhood, not by Danny's plans, but because he symbolizes an idea of a man whom these paisanos admire and aspire to emulate.Near the end, Steinbeck culminates his Arthurian episodes at Tortilla Flat with two wild events which unite the town. He uses his idea of a community organism as a ribbon to wrap his gift. Danny falls into a kind of madness, perhaps because he loses even more freedom due to his obligation to his friends who have grown to depend on him - and not just materially. As Danny suffers, so do his friends. They sympathize and stress over how to help him feel better. As he lives, so do his friends. They clamber about laughing, telling stories, and baking their bare feet in the sun. The group has completely fused into one living beast, completely interdependent. I wonder if Danny detested this - the curse of every noble leader. He finally felt the loss of his carefree independence, cursing the responsibility which had robbed him of his freedom and perhaps, also, the love and humanity which had blessed him with influence over the livelihood of his friends and seeded the inspiration which united a microcosmic world. When one invests themselves completely into the happiness of others, whether intentionally or otherwise, what more can they give when they no longer exist as themselves but as the spirit of all?Afterwards, when they walk away, they know these possessions never mattered. And they would never feel lonely or sad again. Only content with life - sleeping in the woods and scavenging for the next gallon of wine. With Danny always with them.
John Steinbeck has become an author whose books I can open to virtually any page and settle into a world I never want to leave. Even the men I work with who find fiction "theatrical" and rarely read books break into a smile at the mention of Steinbeck. His 1935 breakthrough Tortilla Flat was likely assigned reading in high school and it stands as a remarkable introduction to the author, with twenty-seven easily digested and related stories penned with faerie tale simplicity, wit and wonder.The world of Tortilla Flat is the town of Monterey, California, which has not been touched by the Great Depression and not yet mobilized for World War II. Steinbeck would later explore the lower parts of town inhabited by the catchers and canners of fish in Cannery Row, but this book is set on the slope of a hill, "where the forest and the town intermingle, where the streets are innocent of asphalt and the corner free of street lights". This is a place known as Tortilla Flat.Tortilla Flat is inhabited by the paisano. Steinbeck writes, What is a paisano? He is a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican and assorted Caucasian bloods. His ancestors have lived in California for a hundred or two years. He speaks English with a paisano accent and Spanish with a paisano accent. 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.The main player is Danny, a paisano who enlists in the army and spends World War I breaking mules in Texas. When he returns home, Danny discovers his viejo (grandfather) has died and left him two small houses in Tortilla Flat. The responsibility of managing such wealth weights heavy on Danny and sends him on a reign of terror smashing windows, earning him a 30-day stay in the Monterey city jail. Upon his escape, Danny encounters his old friend, the logician Pilon, a wanderer who works a little, drinks a lot and sleeps against whichever tree he falls down next to. Danny is determined not to let his wealth go to his head and offers Pilon room and board at the second of his houses. Pilon offers to pay ten dollars a month in rent, a sum which Danny never expects to collect and Pilon never intends to pay.Pilon encounters his friend Pablo, a philosopher who sleeps under the wharf. Pilon offers Pablo board for fifteen dollars a month, rent which Pilon never expects to collect and Pablo never intends to pay. But under Pilon's logic, he will not have to pay Danny rent until Pablo pays him rent. Passed out drunk one night, Pilon and Pablo burn the house to the ground and move in with Danny.Others join them: the humanitarian Jesus Maria, the dim-witted rascal Big Joe and finally The Pirate, a vagrant who sells pitchwood for a quarter a day yet lives in a chicken coop with his five beloved dogs. Pilon deduces that The Pirate had buried his earnings somewhere in the forest and invites him (and the dogs) to live with them in the hopes of discovering the location of his cache. Many adventures featuring Danny and his friends ensue. These paisano tales become legend in Tortilla Flat. Steinbeck's chapter titles foreshadow the action nicely: I) How Danny, home from the wars, found himself an heir, and how he swore to protect the helpless. V) How Danny's Friends became a force for Good. How they succored the poor Pirate. IX) How Danny was ensnared by a vacuum-cleaner and how Danny's Friends rescued him.Steinbeck's fiction has it all. There's drinking, singing, fighting and romancing, the cornerstones of a hard earned life. There's pathos, with characters considering the mysteries of the universe and why things happen the way they do. There are Caucasian, Mexican and Asian characters, as well as women, driving the story. The measure of a man is not where he works or whether he drives a car. Material rewards are anchors these free-spirited characters would prefer to live without. Instead, the measure of a man is how he treats his friends. I always find this world view supremely reassuring. MGM released a film adaptation of Tortilla Flat in 1942 starring John Garfield as Danny, Spencer Tracy as Pilon and Hedy Lamarr as Dolores, the single lady who Danny gets into all sorts of trouble with after bestowing a vacuum cleaner to. Directed by Victor Fleming, the picture wraps everything up with a happy ending which was not a going concern in Steinbeck's source material.
What do You think about Tortilla Flat (2001)?
Tortilla Flat is quite a number of things. On the surface, it's a short novel about a group of friends with certain proclivities towards drinking wine. A lot of wine. On another level it's supposedly a retelling of the Knights of the Round Table, but I am not even going to front like I know enough about that to appreciate that connection at its depths. On another level, suiting our economic times, it's also about rising up in social classes -- how difficult it is to do, what happens to us and our friends and family when that change occurs, and how easy it is to undo. (While typing that I came to the realization that Tortilla Flat has quite a few things in common with one of my favorite movies, Trading Places.)Tortilla Flat is a poor, close-knit community near Monterey. Steinbeck's novel of the same name revolves around the stories of its residents -- who themselves star and indulge in their fair amount of gossip and storytelling -- but especially a group of friends who find themselves indebted to one of their own. Danny, upon returning from a stint of cattle herding and shepardship during the war, finds that his grandfather has passed and left him not one but two houses. Being a landowner even now holds a certain amount of distinction, and in Tortilla Flat it holds even more. Slowly, Danny and his group of friends move through various stages of response to Danny's inheritance. Guilt, jealousy, selfishness, acceptance, sharing, obligation, appreciation, etc. The transitions are difficult for all involved, but the group of friends finds communal bliss for a time when they are all living under one roof, contributing to one another's goals and well-being. A few reviews on Goodreads argue that Steinbeck displays some unflattering thoughts about who he calls "paisanos" -- and while obviously I am perhaps not in the best place to make an argument either way, I would say that, reading into it, and knowing a bit about Steinbeck, I didn't quite have that impression, though I can possibly understand why others might. But if nothing else, Tortilla Flat lends a romantic air to the lives of its characters, and Steinbeck seems to be rallying against the notion of property ownership and riches and the effect they have on the people who come into them (unless these things are used for a greater good than one's own). Not to mention, Steinbeck's house/the Steinbeck museum is also part museum about the experience of migrant workers, as he was particularly passionate about their issues.In addition to the influence of economic statuses, Tortilla Flat has a lot to say about judging lest ye be judged. The friends, at times, are not all that great to each other -- they do mean, selfish things in the name of money, wine, and love. But then one realizes that most of us have done terrible things in our time in the name of money, wine, and love. The men and women who roam Tortilla Flat are more forgiving and understanding than most, particularly if repentance comes in the form of wine (which I can totally get behind).Like other Steinbeck works I've read there's this beautiful balance between the sweet and the sour in Tortilla Flat. Steinbeck gut-punches your heart and cuddles it like a soft creature in about equal measure. I have gone back and forth on whether or not I think he's a pessimist or an optimist (thanks to this book, I have been doing that a lot), and I feel like maybe he's a realistic optimist and that's part of why he resonates deep inside my soul, but, you know, maybe not. Either way, Steinbeck gets me on a very emotional level that feels wrought from my own muscle and tissue, and for even just that alone, I'll continue to pick up and devour his books.
—Taylor
When a book is well written and the reader can empathize with the characters the experience is a joyful time well spent. Tortilla Flat surpassed my expectancy of a good read!I need to trust those who have declared a book a classic or those that chose an author to be a Nobel prize winner. I like to make up my own mind on a particular read but I think these sorts of recommendations can not be often wrong. I feel badly that I was too lazy to actually read what my high school teachers assigned. I think they wanted to share and expose us to good writing. We had plenty of bad writing to compare it to but I didn't have time or desire for even that. Perhaps I just wasn't ready for the subtleties and moral implications that great authors make you think about. I understand now why some people can read a single book several times. It is a gift each time you enter the authors world. Luckily John Steinbeck created many worlds and I can always go to him to give me a thought-provoking good read.
—Patty
This novel could easily be a set of short stories, a morality tale (or immorality!), a retelling of the Arthurian legends or a retelling of the gospels with a very alternative last supper!Danny and his friends (all paisanos) spend their time looking for food, wine, shelter and women and this is pretty much all they need in life to be content. Getting hold of wine is a thread through the book and its role is important; sharing your wine is true friendship and there are some excellent quotes"Two gallons is a great deal of wine, even for two paisanos. Spiritually the jugs may be graduated thus: just below the shoulder of the first bottle, serious and concentrated conversation. Two inches farther down, sweetly sad memory. Three inches more, thoughts of old and satisfactory loves. An inch, thoughts of bitter loves. Bottom of first jug, general and undirected sadness. Shoulder of the second jug, black, unholy despondency. Two fingers down, a song of death and longing. A thumb, every other song one knows. The graduations stop here, for the trail splits and there is no certainty. From this point on, anything can happen." Steinbeck has been accused of recism and stereotyping. I can understand why and the book is of its time. Howeverthere is no real malice in the portrayal of Danny and his firends. I was strongly reminded of a group of friends I had when I finished university in 1981. I was living in bedsit land as were we all and our lives revolved for a short time around food, drink, interesting liaisons (more detail on application!!) and arguing about life. The bonds were loose and people drifted in and out, but there was the same sense in the group as I found in Tortilla Flat. Ultimately friendship and wine do mean more than money. I know this isn't a substantial or important work but I loved it and its themes are universal.
—Paul
