Milagro Beanfield War

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!)

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.

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.

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.

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