Although it was initially rejected for publication on a number of occasions, this work – a short story cycle - was Steinbeck’s first real critical and commercial success,. He wrote it during 1933 and early 1934, when he was heavily involved in caring for his elderly parents, who were both were very ill. Steinbeck was inspired to write the book by a high school teacher friend, who was partly of Mexican descent. She had been studying the paisanos, poor people of mixed Mexican, Native American and Caucasian ancestry, who lived in a shantytown in the hills above Monterey. Steinbeck's friend told him a number of stories from that community, which was referred to as Tortilla Flat.

One of Steinbeck’s abiding literary passions was Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table. He aimed to recreate the spirit of the adventures of the Knights of the Round Table in linked stories about Danny and his friends Pilon, Pablo, Jesus Maria, the Pirate and Big Joe Portagee. Living together in a house inherited by Danny, the friends develop a strong moral code which governs their relationship with each other. This code does not involve sobriety or other indicia of bourgeois respectability, such as respect for private property. While stealing from a friend is punished severely, stealing from those outside the group is not only accepted, it’s encouraged.

There is a lot to like about this work. The satirical, mock-heroic tone is clever, the characters of Danny and his friends are well-realised and sympathetically drawn, there's plenty of humour and Steinbeck’s prose is wonderful. On the other hand, to a modern reader the depiction of the paisanos as heavy drinking, thieving no-hopers – albeit with a strong code of friendship and mutual support – is disconcerting. And the sexual politics of the characters is questionable to say the least.

This is not my favourite Steinbeck. Although I appreciate Steinbeck’s achievement in recreating a version of the myth of the Knights of the Round Table and I love the characters and the writing, the work feels dated, which cannot be said of Steinbeck’s major novels. I listened to an audiobook which was very well narrated by John McDonough. It gets 3-1/2 stars, because anything Steinbeck wrote is worth reading.

This book was incredibly boring to me and not on the same level as The Pearl and The Red Pony which I found very spiritual and thoroughly enjoyed. This is the fourth John Steinbeck book that I've read. The other was The Grapes of Wrath which was tolerable but not as good as the short stories I mentioned above.

The author's sympathy and affection towards this gang of young, carefree, charming and somewhat sterotypical 'paisanos' are reflected in his tone and the gentle humour.
The life that they lead revolves around a gallon of wine which is the ultimate goal they try to achieve at the end of each day. It is a necessary condition of good life. Their happy-go-lucky attitude towards tomorrow, their comarderie, loyalty, mischef and simple pleasures are attractive and entertaining to the readers.
However, as for me (honestly!) I haven't read such a boring (well-written, of course) book for a long time. I am sorry!

4.5 :)

I learned from this book that I continue to love Steinbeck. I despise the idea that he (like hemmingway for that matter) is sometimes considered a "simple" writer. Here's my opinion: Using flowery prose to add weight and impart meaning on a vaporous story is not great literature. A substantive story, containing meaning and moral, simply told IS great literature. This is what I run into every time I read Steinbeck. Hemmingway too. Simple construction - departing every so often to show off that yes, they know EXACTLY what they're describing - for the most part just recording the story as they would an event that really happened. They don't need a $2 word every couple paragraphs, they need maybe three per book. Besides, none of the characters would know the word, so why would you use it to describe them? What are you, better than your subject? I think the point Steinbeck constantly makes is - no, you're not. The characters are interesting and simply made, archetypes almost. I've heard its a Camelot tale and I can see it. They even use "Thou" and "Thee" in some parts. But it never seems heavy handed, you can almost see the characters realizing they're playing a part and stepping up to do it. Like Cannery Row, its about a lot of down on their luck guys, and the people of the town about them. Some richer, some poorer, all with their own little story. And Steinbeck seems to love the little side stories. Thankfully, he's so quick with his pen they're like brief tangents that come, then go once you've gotten the point of them. He never departs from our subjects for more than a couple pages, never spends 5 pages describing a rock or a particular tree, or even any of the men or the home they live in. A story that makes your throat tighten at the end, and makes you wish...well, you're supposed to read it. But the desire to keep things as they are is a very strong one in real life, Steinbeck makes you feel that desire and sense of loss in the little world he creates, and it takes him less than 200 pages to do it.

Tortilla Flat was one of the earlier works of John Steinbeck taking place in Monterey, California during the years after World War I and the Great Depression. When Danny returns to Monterey after serving in the U.S. Army, he discovers that he has inherited the small home of his grandfather in Tortilla Flat. Told in a true Arthurian legend with the legendary knights of the round table, Danny gathers a rag-tag group of paisanos around him, but with each one standing firm in their loyalty to one another as they fall victim to many temptations resulting in a lot of chaos and unrest as well as a brotherhood. This was such an endearing classic of this American version of Camelot and unfolding in one of my favorite cities in California.

"Monterey sits on the slope of a hill, with a blue bay below it and with a forest of tall dark pine trees at its back. The lower part of the town are inhabited by Americans, Italians, catchers and canners of fish. But on the hill where the forest and the town intermingle, where the streets are innocent of asphalt and the corners free of street lights, the old inhabitants of Monterey are embattled as the Ancient Britons are embattled in Wales. These are the paisanos."

"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 concerning his race, he indignantly claims pure Spanish blood . . . "

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.

چه شیرین و دوست‌داشتنی بود

Published in 1935, Tortilla Flat is one of John Steinbeck's earliest novels. The story revolves around Danny who inherits two old houses in the poor hillside area of Monterey after he returns from World War I. He and five paisanos live in the houses where they tell tall tales, drink wine, and chase women. The paisanos have a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican, and Caucasian ancestry. In the preface, Steinbeck compares the adventures of Danny and the paisanos to those of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.

Each chapter of the book tells one humorous tale. The friends love freedom and red wine, and have no desire for material things unless they can be traded for more wine. Only Pirate, a mentally challenged man, works by collecting firewood. The jobless paisanos spend a large amount of energy either stealing, or using their wits to trick someone to obtain what they need. They do have a warm comradeship, and love sitting in the sun sharing stories and a jug of wine. There were some emotionally touching stories, especially about Pirate and his devoted dogs. The paisanos acted a bit like Robin Hood in another story where they stole food so Teresina Cortez's eight children would not starve.

I enjoyed Steinbeck's descriptions of Monterey--the fishermen on the rocks, the little houses dotting the hillsides, the warm sun, the woods that might hold buried treasure. It took me a little while to get into this picaresque novel, probably because it was so different from Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, one of my favorite books. Tortilla Flat tells the stories of a totally different group of poor people in California. Steinbeck uses humor and tall tales in this book, as compared to realism as he describes the overwhelming desperation and heroic undertakings in The Grapes of Wrath.

ماذا سيكون مصير رجل له مجموعة من الاصدقاء السكارى و الحمقى في الوقت ذاته
هذا ماذا سوف تعرفه في قصة
هضبة تورتيلا .. جون شتاينبك

John Steinbeck paints this aquarelle of lush colours and poetic kindness in bold strokes.
Tortilla Flat is a case of the meek inheriting the earth – some are meek in the head, some are meek in their moral attitudes and some have other kinds of meekness…

Teresina was a mildly puzzled woman, as far as her mind was concerned. Her body was one of those perfect retorts for the distillation of children. The first baby, conceived when she was fourteen, had been a shock to her; such a shock, that she delivered it in the ball park at night, wrapped it in newspaper, and left it for the night watchman to find. This is a secret. Even now Teresina might get into trouble if it were known.

Those who live in the backyard of society dwell in their own romantic world.

What ostensibly is just another story of a gang of tramps set in the 1920s, yes during the roaring era in Monterey, California where the writer John Steinbeck born in nearby Salinas visited often and knew well and loved . The Mexican-Americans with Indian and ( they insist Spanish blood too), lived above the city in a hill called Tortilla Flats a misnomer if ever there was. Some would say a bunch of lazy, homeless, drunken hoodlums, in other words loveable rascals still a few served in ww1 as soldiers. Constant quest for finding libations, these men have a thirst which no amount of alcohol will quench. Their existence is tied body and soul to the next drink, inexpensive wine will do nicely, the people aren't particularly picky. It is no mistake this resembles King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, in Camelot. The author was a big admirer of those mythical tales of chivalry but their goals though never quite reached, that is the sorrow. Danny ( Arthur) is the unofficial vagrant leader, Pilon, presumably ( Lancelot) the smartest paisano, when he inherits two homes from his late not very understanding grandfather. Danny also receives new friends the young man didn't realized were his, still houses are much better than living in the woods, no creeping critters crawling on your body while you try to sleep, ouch . Pilon, Pablo, Jesus Maria, Johnny, Tito, Big Joe Portagee ( I resent mildly this name) being of the tribe haha, and among others, The Pirate the only one who works, whose five dogs fellow him forever. The poor endearing man , has a weak brain living in a dirty chicken coop with dogs and all, burying the few coins in the forest by selling pitch wood, why ? Not just an amusing story of derelicts living, drinking, stealing, chasing women and to a lesser degree surviving the world without the lifting of a finger... but as it does Earth is unforgiving, doesn't care who it hurts. Nobody writes better about what society calls bums than Mr. John Steinbeck he had experience with the unfortunates, however in the thirties ( 1935) when this book was published many struggling workers felt jealous, the hobos were having more fun, strange as it seems . The novel was a bestseller which cemented the talented writer's career, from rags to riches indeed. Sometimes miracles occur and the public is the great benefactor and we the readers are grateful.