Plot: Guy inherits 2 houses. He gets drunk. His drunk friends burn down one house. They all move into the other house. they invite more drunks in to live. All their money goes for jug wine. They also spend lots of time in jail, or begging for food. Anyone who doesn't want to blow money on wine either gets beat up or called a "Jew". At the end the house burns down.

This is meant to be entertaining?

When I first read Tortilla Flat, I really enjoyed it. It is a slice of life for a group of unemployed and generally carefree men. Essentially it is about relationships for this rag-tag posse whose main concern is how they are going to con enough money out of their friends and neighbors to afford their next gallon of wine.
Danny owns a house in the area known as Tortilla flat and becomes a local legend with his drunken antics. Encased in a series of misadventerous tales, it is all about loyal relationships and easygoing hedonism. When I finished reading for the first time, I wanted nothing else to recline in the sun with a group of friends and sip wine from jam jars.
What it boils down to is this: Tortilla Flat is a great read, but if you want to experience Steinbeck exploring similar themes, consider picking up Cannery Row (written ten years after Tortilla Flat).
And yes, I will even deign to give this book a completely subjective letter grade: B

John Steinbeck depicts in this book a brief period in the lives of seven characters, seven "paisanos", in the immediate outskirts of Monterey, California. They are extremely poor, they are almost social outcasts; they are drinkers and would do almost anything for a jug of wine, they are at the same time selfish and altruistic, and find strange and contorted ways to rationalize their actions, yet they are filled with humanity. They "reject nearly all of the standard morals of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life centering around wine, lust, comradery, and petty thievery." (from "Wikipedia", at "John Steinbeck") The situations and the dialogue are uproarius, the humour is constant. The book, written in 1935, earned its author a gold medal and was made into a movie in 1942.
This book is one of my all-time favourites.

I have long considered this to be my all time favorite book. I don't deny that Steinbeck refined his craft, publishing a more polished Cannery Row (and then Sweet Thursday) some years and decades later, however, there is something refreshing about Tortilla Flat in it's unpolished way. I would not recommend this book blindly to anyone. It's not a book for critics, and literary fellows. No one's going to make this part of a college reading list. But there is something wholy American about John Steinbeck, and that makes Tortilla Flat something like a Declaration of Independence - the words what started it all.

This is Steinbeck's fourth novel or more accurately a novella. It is not one that would be ranked among his best and it is far below his best known novel "Grapes of Wrath" or his other famous novella "Of Mice and Men," which was his first novel. I have read most of his works including the present, which is an interesting but not a must read for Steinbeck fans. It has interesting prose and good drama but not great, and I would rank it behind, "The Red Pony," and of course below "Cannery Row," and "The Moon is Down." It is similar in style and structure and moral implications to Steinbeck's "The Pearl."

It is set in northern California, in Monterey, and it is set partly in a small town and partly in a rural settings. The story is about a mixture of Spanish, Indian, Mexican and Caucasians that lived basically as beggars or doing odd jobs and who lived in shacks. It is part entertainment and part a morality lesson.

John Steinbeck (1902 - 1968) was among the best known American writers of the 20th century. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize for literature. His 1939 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, "Grapes of Wrath" has over ten million copies in print.

Steinbeck was born in rural California, went to Stanford, and spent most of his life in California. He has been associated with the plight of farm workers and others. His books have been very popular and many were made into movies and stage productions. He won an Academy Award nomination for best story in 1944.

I have read a number of his novels and am still surprised with the quality of his work - especially his short stories and short novels. The present work is short and probably ranks among the middle or bottom of his 17 novels and novellas.

It is not a heavy read and takes one evenings to read. I liked the book and but give it only a neutral recommendation, and it would not be high on my list of Steinbeck novels.

As a suggestion, do not buy the book alone, but rather would buy it as part of a collection such as Steinbeck's book: "The Short Novels of John Steinbeck," from Viking Press in 1953, and updated versions of that book.