Tortilla Flat

I knew it. 
In all of my years of saying that I don't like Steinbeck, I never once said that he wasn't a writing god. I never once said that he didn't know characters, humans, emotions, despair...but more than that, I never said that he didn't fully understand joy. 
What some don't seem to understand in life is that those who've felt the deepest pits, journeyed their paths, known the burn of death in their veins are those who feel the greatest joy, see the brightest stars, know that all small things bring meaning to the larger. 
Except, possibly, Hemingway. I don't like him. At all. Just. No. That man seemed to delight in his darkness and perpetuate it. I have no patience for that. 
I went into this book expecting to 1: like it and 2: feel it. Both happened.
The ending...
well, here.
First, go read a synopsis. A good one. Then come back.

"Thus must it be, O wise friends of Danny. The cord that bound you together is cut. The magnet that drew you has lost it's virtue. Some stranger will own the house, some joyless relative of Danny's. Better that this symbol of holy friendship, this good house of parties and fights, of love and comfort, should die as Danny died, in one last glorious, hopeless assault on the gods.
They say and smiled. And the flame climbed like a snake to the ceiling and broke through the roof and roared. Only then did the friends get up from their chairs and walk like dreaming men out of the door. 
Pilon, who profited by every lesson, took what was left of the wine with him. 
The sirens screamed from Monterey. The trucks roared up the hill in second gear. The searchlights played among the trees. When the Department arrived, the house was one great blunt spear of flame. The hoses wet the trees and brush to keep the flames from spreading. 
Among the crowding people of Tortilla Flat, Danny's friends stood entranced and watched until at last the house was a mound of black, steaming cinders. Then the fire trucks turned and coasted away down the hill. 
The people of the Flat melted into the darkness. Danny's friends still stood looking at the smoking ruin. They looked at one another strangely, and then back to the burned house. And after a while they turned and walked slowly away, and no two walked together."

Incredible. 
Damn it all. 
I felt it in my core, the twinge and pull. 

And I want to talk about it. I want to cry about it. I want to have someone comfort me and help me process all the feelings. 
Beautiful agony.