Brooks on Books: Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

I wonder if today people tend to underestimate John Steinbeck's sense of humor because they think his most famous work, "The Grapes of Wrath," is a kind of hectoring polemic about the horrors of the Depression. But even that novel had some very funny scenes in it, and his other books feature funny material as well. "Tortilla Flat" is a comic novel that presents a certain mindset, a kind of illogical logic its characters subscribe to, and if you can accept that, you'll enjoy it.

Steinbeck writes here about the paisanos (who claimed a mixture of Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and Caucasian heritage) of a coastal area in post-WWI Northern California. In particular, there is a man named Danny around whom a group of like-minded paisanos gather and have "adventures"--most revolving around obtaining basic pleasures of life like wine, women, and song while avoiding evils like steady employment, responsibility, and permanence.

Supposedly the author modeled these likable rogues on King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, but it would take someone smarter than me to point out those parallels. Suffice to say that there is a certain romance to their lives that Steinbeck captures. He doesn't consider them bums, more like charming rascals who are incorrigible but basically good-hearted. The narrative voice neither condemns nor condones Danny and his friends, rather it recounts their tales with a wry, often florid manner that lays out their mindset in such a way that we know the narrator knows it's ridiculous but stops short of outright ridicule.

The kind of logic at work here is seen early on when Pilon, who is sort of the head rascal to Danny's group center, pursues a chicken. He tells the bird how miserable his life must be walking around near the road. After all, he reasons, the chicken is liable to get hit by an automobile and lose a wing and live in misery. So, unsaid by Pilon but implied by the narrator, far better for the bird to be killed quickly and eaten.

Better yet, later 3 men in the group have two bucks and are preparing to give it to Danny for rent. One asks what Danny needs the money for, anyway, and they discuss how he wants to buy candy for Mrs. Morales, the next-door neighbor. Quickly they mention how candy rots teeth, but what do they care if Mrs. Morales rots her teeth, BUT what if Danny eats some candy himself and rots HIS teeth? What kinds of friends would they be if they gave him the money to rot his teeth? So maybe they should warn Danny not to do so, to buy wine for the lady instead. But what if Danny decides to buy the candy after all? No, to be safe, they should be true friends and buy the wine themselves to give to Danny.

If Danny gets any of the wine, he'll be lucky.

Just put any combination of rent, wine, maybe food in there, and you'll get the kind of thinking these characters implement on a regular basis. It's a constant series of rationalizations that enable the thinker to justify doing what he wants. Not a bad way to live, actually. The circular logic could be repetitive after a while, but Steinbeck's episodic novel features enough different interesting scenarios in its relatively short length that it never gets tiresome. Reading about these guys and their efforts to barter for what they need/want is an entertaining experience because the characters are so appealing. They are not so much distinct as individuals as they are a unit, one that is quickly realized because of that common mindset.

It helps that while they sometimes steal--even from each other--and brawl and commit petty acts of vandalism, they're never truly criminal or mean. Steinbeck successfully walks the line of illustrating their roguishness while keeping them likable. Similarly, he (as the narrator) uses a literary style to recount their adventures but never lets us think he's taking it too seriously. It's a delightful comic novel with a rich cast in a vivid setting.

Often I'll see a movie and want to read the book afterwards, but in this case, I learned the movie would be on TV but reread the book before seeing it. This weekend, I'll write about MGM's 1942 adaptation of "Tortilla Flat."