Customer Reviews

The Milagro Beanfield War

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a truly enjoyable book, a fun read full of interesting, quirky characters, revealed in a mini class-war. The peace-loving agrarians of Milagro find themselves oppressed by the city slickers & suits who draw up water-compacts & grazing regulations. Slowly, but certainly, they're being squeezed off their ancestral lands, having their buccolic lifestyle eroded by the landed, the government, and the wealthy.

But this is not a grim, revolutionary novel, full of dogma and bloodshed. It's a tale of a bunch of characters, who really just want to be left alone, backed against the wall and making their last stand.

Who couldn't cheer for Cleofas or Joe Mondragon? Who doesn't want to drop El Zopilote into the Rio Grande with cement shoes? The protagonists seduce you into their stories, and their enemies are disgusting precisely because they are so removed, because they are so ordinary, so boring.

Nichols demonstrates to us that authentic people work the land, work their jobs, lead their lives, and that their lives are worthy of storytelling. In our dominator culture, the wealthy are the powerful. Their lives, while pampered & protected, are dull, uninteresting. We only care about them when our heroes stop bending over for them and say "enough is enough." Look deeply within yourself & see just how much of Joe Mondragon you carry. Now, log off the internet & see if you can live a life worthy of Milagro.

Five stars for characterization. Five stars of making a tired plot (underdogs vs. oppressors) so much fun. Five stars for a gentle, funny read that worms its way into your heart.

(If you'd like to comment on this review, click on the "about me" link above & email me. Thanks!)

I had been living in Northern NM for about a year when I read The Milagro Beanfield War. I took it with me on a backpacking trip through the Pecos Wilderness. I had been completely bewildered by the wide variety of cultures surrounding me in my all-too-brief sojourn in the Santa Fe area.

The Milagro Beanfield War, with its warm wit and characterisations, made all the little puzzle pieces I had been fumbling with come together--from the Taos real estate broker who told me at a party in White Rock that he didn't like to sell land to "those people" because "they just pull in a trailer and start raising chickens and pigs right there in their front yard--ruins the neighborhood" (he could have been a character in the book) to the reverence of my neighbors for the centuries-old practice of community care of the acequia.

The magical internal lives of the local characters and the convoluted way in which the story is told are really part of the rich texture of the place -- nothing is ever straightforward or simple. That's the beauty of it.

Read the book. The movie captures very beautifully what a movie can -- but there's so much more in the book! In particular, the female characters are even stronger, better and more interesting.

If, like me, you need an occasional break from the cynicism and irony that prevails in modern fiction, you're probably just looking for a good, warm-hearted, read. This is it. It offers up a story of people who are at odds with each other, but learn to compromise. The characters are quirky, but the writing is not overly cute, as is the case with authors such as Tom Robbins, to whom Nichols is sometimes compared. This is essentially a "good time" read. Those looking for deep human insights or psychological delving should look elsewhere. This one's an unadulterated joy-ride.

There is one thing about the Milagro Beanfiled War.... You cannot put it down. I have lived in Northern New Mexico for most of my life, and there is no written word that comes close to the people here except for the Milagro Beanfield War. I must say that growing up in a small Northern NM town, I have seen most of this story first hand (I went to school with the young versions of these characters).

This is such a comedic book, I feel off the couch several times laughing so hard it hurt. If you have seen the movie, you need to read the book. The movie does not do justice to the female characters (especially Mercedes Real and Ruby - queen of plumbing). For some reason right now, every time I walk down to the little country store, I feel that I should be bombarded with little white pebbles, one at a time - coming from Mercedes who is in her 60's.

Once into the first 30 pages (and you can't stop)...the essence of Northern NM is alive and well. Cleofes (hold on tight when you read about him), a simple lonely (rumored to be cursed by the superstitious town) had a dog named Pendejo (if you don't know what it means, you can look it up) and one day, his beloved dog, Pendejo died. Years later he was lonely and he heard the excited barks of Pendejo coming for a certain spot in his yard. He digs and digs (while the town watches, sells chairs to watch the digging, ect...) and you learn a little about the simplistic lives in Northern NM.

Just remember Herbie, poor Herbie (the peaceful hippy volunteer that came to Milagro) to "tech them things," and instead he winds up with...well... a strange story including .38 caliber, 2 skunks, losing his guitar, hummingbirds, ants, flying ants, bees, sunflower (the horse), Pacheco's Pig, ect...

I am not a big reader (it takes me awhile to get through books) and this one took me a whole 2 days. My advice is if you get this book, have a whole day in which you can devote to, otherwise you will not be able to get anything done (like irrigating the field, try to overturn the bulldozer, drive a backhoe over the Rio Grande Gorge {800 feet deep}, find Pacheco's pig, listen to all the phone conversations, learn about the VISTA Volunteer, the Smokey the bear Santo riot, and so on and so on)

In this version of the book, avoid the author's afterward.... It is an advertisement for his other books and does not contribute what so ever to the book... it subtracts quite a bit.

I remember reading this in high school after my mom was caught breaking into hysterical fits of laughter for no apparent reason. (Yes, she was reading the book. No, she's not Mercedes Rael.) Being that I'm from the Southwest, it has aspects that ring close, but one could apply the 'lessons' to pretty much any struggle of haves vs have-nots. That is, if you don't get so caught up in the character interactions and the background mythos of the town to keep track of those lessons.

Unfortunately, the movie of the same name was severely watered down, although some characters (Kyril Motana, the state cop) came fairly close. If you enjoyed the movie, you'll probably love the book. If you thought the movie was 'overly sweet and bucolic' then be prepared for a surprise - John Nichols version is a lot more crude, rude, and lets face it, real, than Redford's movie production.

If you liked the fictional town of Grace, AZ in Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal Dreams" I can pretty much guarantee you'll LOVE the town of Milagro, NM. Although Kingsolver does an excellent job of creating sympathetic characters, I feel like she tends to over-simplify the "big issues"-- issues that Nichols has no problem tackling. "The Milagro Beanfield War" confronts substantive topics (like water rights) head on, but the story is also overflowing with colorful characters and subplots, so I am forced to disagree with the reviewers who say you can get through it in two days-- at least, I know I didn't. Although I recommend the movie as well (Ruben Blades is great!), it does not do justice to the book's complexity, nor is it as funny. If you have seen the movie and liked it at all, read this book. And if you haven't seen the movie, read the book first-- you won't regret it.

I was sent a copy of this book aloong with "The Monkey Wrench Gang". Gang looked like it would be more fun so I read it first and thought it was great. Then I read "Beanfield". This book knocked my socks off. It was so funny and yet so poigniant I couldn't put it down. Much like Dickens, Nichols characters come to life right on the page. Only one other book hit me as hard and that was "Coockoos Nest". I went one step farther and wrote Nichols a letter and he responded with a hunt and pecked letter in response that is still one of my personnel treasures. Robert Redford thought it was a good story and so I must also thank him for making an unforgetable movie with fantastic music. Many Thanks to both of you for your vision and your genious. Mal Heffernan

Now more than a quarter century since it was first published, The Milagro Beanfield War remains a wonderfully entertaining and humorous look at life in rural New Mexico. Although fictional, the little town of Milagro that John Nichols describes is like any of the small towns in the beautiful mountains of northern New Mexico - the kind of place where not much has changed in the last 50 years and probably not much will change in the next 50; the kind of place where everybody in town not only knows everbody else in town, but they also know everybody else's secrets (thanks to the archaic old party line phone system where anyone can listen in on anyone else's phone conversations).

The residents of Milagro have been oppressed for years by Ladd Devine, rich developer and owner of the Ladd Devine Sheep Company. The "war" starts when Joe Mondragon, a stubborn and not-so-bright lifelong troublemaking resident of Milagro, decides to irrigate his father's old beanfield against the wishes of Devine, who obtained nearly all the water rights from Milagro farmers years ago. The sparks begin to fly almost immediately as the town's cast of eccentric characters debate whether to support Joe while Devine, the governor, and the state police try to decide how to react without inciting a riot among the residents of Milagro.

All of the characters like Sammy Cantu, the town's mayor (who supported installing a single parking meter in town in hopes of getting enough revenue to pay for the sherrif's office), the one-armed Onofre Martinez who is the only resident to ever park in front of that meter, and the slightly insane Seferino Pacheco, owner of a giant pet pig that is constantly getting loose and wreaking havoc around town, provide plenty of laughs while the "war" rages on.

Nichols describes the simple life and beauty of northern New Mexico masterfully, making it possible to almost feel the cool mountain air and taste the enchiladas while enjoying the exploits of the town's residents. If you've ever wondered why New Mexico is called the Land of Enchantment, read this book.

Humour is the #1 attraction of this now somewhat dated novel from the '70's , but it is also famous for history,ecology,political radicalism, the evocation of the American West and its characters,its guns.The #2 attraction is "people power" or how in a democracy people can come together and,at least for a short time, control their own destinies. The sequel "Nirvana Blues" is also frequently hilarious in a Marx Brothers way. The humour is on nearly every page; the Smokey the Bear santos riot stands out,but it is only one event among many. Nichols becomes somewhat serious when he writes about fly fishing for trout(though even this is a tall tale) ,river gorges, or pristine mountain lakes, but the rest is a hilarious romp through traditional Chicano vs. modern Anglo predatory culture in northern New Mexico. At times Nichols seems to be making fun of the idiosyncrasies of the traditional culture. Nichols casts traditional farmer and protagonist Joe Mondragon, who makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to illegally irrigate his beanfield, in a reluctant leadership role, but there are others who are more truly leaders. The novel is also a Noah's Ark of animals,birds,reptiles, insects and fish and Nichols seems to be telling us that these creatures share the world with us, a point that might be somewhat lost at times in the sequel "Nirvana Blues". There is a real conflict of cultures at the heart of "Milagro" and a serious political issue between the rich developers and their allies and the poor farmers regarding water rights in the parched Southwest. These two forces receive approximately equal time in this novel, though it is not hard to discern where the author's sympathies lie--with the traditional farmer. The same scenario has been played out in different ways all over America. In New Mexico, all the water rights have been diverted for 30 years to the rich farmers in the south. Although they have not won yet, it is suggested that the developers will win, and this novel is just an early round won by the traditional farmers. The reader should applaud this outcome. Both this novel and its sequel have probably deservedly assumed the rank of cult classics, but in the sequel the land developors have won making this a basically tragic novel, though it too seeks humour and occasionally finds it. It is also somewhat reminiscent of the Eagles' '70's classic song "The Last Resort."

I finally got around to reading this novel whilst on summer vacation (it was in the free pile at the condo) and am so glad that I did.

Nichols engages the reader from the first page, with a blend of magical realism, social commentary, satire, and good old fashioned story telling.

Jose "Joe" Mandragon sets in motion a variety of forces in the state of New Mexico when he irrigates his family legacy, a miniscule beanfield left to him by his father. With that simple act, centuries-old tensions between rancher and farmer, Mexican and Anglo, subsistence living and the cash economy, come to a head.

What could have been a dull exercise in race relations, regional history, and economic theory, is instead brought to wonderful, earthy life in this charming novel that will make you think, laugh, and perhaps even shed a tear or two.

Definitely worth reading!