The Bookworm: Tortilla Flat

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. 224 pages. Penguin Books. 1935.

“Yes — I think I remember — San Francisco looked on me — and he smiled, like the good saint he is. Then I knew the miracle was done. He said, ‘Be good to little doggies, you dirty man.’”

“He called you that?”

“Well, I was, and he is not a saint to be telling me lies.

“I don’t think you remember that at all,” said Pablo.

Complete with hookers, priests, cops, mysticism, drunkenness, and a band of noble miscreants, this is quintessential Steinbeck.

Tortilla Flat reads like an earlier, unpolished version of Cannery Row. As the introduction begins, “This is the story of Danny and Danny’s friends and of Danny’s house.” The story takes place just after World War One in the Tortilla Flat section of Monterey, California, where many of the city’s homeless, like Danny and his friends, survive by scavenging refuse and bartering with their finds. After the death of his grandfather, Danny inherits two homes in the Flat, which he shares with an ever-growing contingent of friends. They form a kind of Arthurian fraternity, banding together for the good of each other and their neighbors. Metaphorical hijinks ensue.

Steinbeck loved the Arthurian legends. His fiction is peppered with modern knights and their good deeds, and Tortilla Flat is a modern version of the round table tale. At the time of his death he was even working on a novel based on the legends, which was published posthumorously: The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. Unfortunately, all of the parallels were over my head. It’s not Steinbeck’s fault, though. All I know about King Arthur and those other guys — whoever they were — is what I remember from watching Disney’s “The Sword in the Stone” and the Monty Python mockery “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” both of which put their own spin on the tales. I know none of the original legends, which Steinbeck likely absorbed when he was a kid. Much of my disconnect can probably be attributed to the cultural and generational differences between Steinbeck and I. He grew up reading about King Arthur, I grew up watching “Duck Tales” and “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” neither of which, I suspect, will inspire me to metaphor. (“MST3K,” however, has shaped my sense of humor.)

That said, I suggest a quick overview of the Arthurian legends. As a good reader and English major I should have done it even though I had already started reading, but I was too lazy.

However, if I want I can go back and consult my highlights. They’re not highlights in the block of bright yellow or orange sense, but penciled in brackets at the beginning and end of pertinent or interesting sentences and paragraphs. Besides the rare marks I made in textbooks and copied stories in college, this is the first book I’ve ever annotated. I just never did it. I thought of it as literary blasphemy; it felt sacrilegious to write in a book. But over the years I’ve realized it’s the opposite. The textual landmarks left by readers help them plumb inner meaning and technique, which is what us writers want. (Shit — it’s a wonder I even got to college.) It’s something I’ve thought of doing for a while, but I just couldn’t overcome my longstanding discipline. This time I did it. It was an amateurish attempted, and somewhat distracting at first — I want to read, not make little brackets! — but I soon got the hang of it. Each time I pulled the book out of my bag I automatically reached for my mechanical pencil.

New word I learned: Clepsydra. From my MacBook dictionary: “an ancient time-measuring device worked by a flow of water.”