Tortilla Flat
I hadn’t read Steinbeck since I was a kid in high school. For some reason, I remember liking The Pearl and hating to the point of not finishing (and I assume doing poorly on some test) The Grapes of Wrath. Anyway, I picked up Tortilla Flat since there was not much else to read in my place and it was so short. I’m glad I did because I loved it. It had the feel of a sitcom the way the stories were short self-contained vignettes chronocling the rise and ultimately the fall of Danny and his paisano friends Pilon, Pablo, Big Joe, Jesus Maria and the Pirate who live in squalid poverty and blissful idleness near Monterey, California.
The writing really reminded me of the writing style in Blindness by Jose Saramago (boy I write about this guy a lot it seems).
I ran out today and picked up a couple of Steinbeck collections to save myself from buying all the individual books plus a couple of Saramago titles (All The Names, which I plan to read next, and The Cave).
Now I just need to remember to read all this stuff. I also shouldn’t forget to pick up Cannery Row.
Posted in Books
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:16 am
[...] The funny thing about that line is that is basically sums up my experience reading this book I picked up a month ago. [...]