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Title: The Milagro Beanfield War by John Treadwell Nichols, Rini Templeton ISBN: 0-8050-6374-9 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: February, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.57 (21 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Dense and hilarious
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: Very funny, extremely accurate take on Northern NM cultures
Comment: 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.
Rating: 5
Summary: Nichols's Masterpiece, a gem in American literature
Comment: If your literary tastes run toward Hemingway, don't bother trying to wade through "The Milagro Beanfield War." Action and plot take a back seat to the exploration of characters and cultures here. On the other hand, if you enjoy Steinbeck or Updike, you will feel perfectly at home in this beautifully crafted novel.
Nichols introduces us to nearly every inhabitant of the village of Milagro, as well as many of the non-natives involved in the story, and spends a great deal of time telling us their past stories, their habits and traits, and their thoughts and emotions. Through these people we also learn about their places in society, the cultures they inhabit and create, the land that they live on and how their lives are tied to that land. In reading this novel for the first time I found I often had to reread entire sections and chapters to make sure that I had, in fact, caught every detail and digested every piece of the story; somehow, if I glossed over something, I could sense that an important piece was missing.
People, places, and cultures are really the heart of this novel. The story itself, about land-developers trying to find a delicate way to keep one native's illegal irrigation of a tiny beanfield from blowing out of control and destroying their resort development plans, moves forward only in drips and bits. Any particular scene or incident of note along the way is used largely to advance our understanding of the people and their cultures and conflicts and prejudices, and only tangentially happen to advance the story. By the end of the novel, you will probably get the sense that not much happened at all in the story, and you'd be right. If you come to this conclusion, however, spend some time thinking about what might have happened to your understanding of these "fictional" characters and the very real lands and cultures they live in.
(Although this novel takes place in the Southwest United States at some time in the mid-1970's, astute readers will be able to transfer this character and culture study to other current conflicts in the world between American and native cultures in other countries. The basic themes and lessons of "Milagro" can apply nearly anywhere.)
Nichols's gift for the written word is on its best display in this novel. Other books by Nichols are well written, but this one stands out in particular as his masterpiece. Read this book first before reading any of his other novels.
If you decide to buy this book, plan on reading it two or three times. Every new pass will reveal things you missed or didn't quite catch the first time around and will enhance your enjoyment of the novel.
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Title: The Magic Journey by John Nichols ISBN: 0805063390 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: The Nirvana Blues by John Treadwell Nichols ISBN: 0805063404 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: February, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title:The Milagro Beanfield War ASIN: 6301065565 Publisher: Universal Studios Pub. Date: 05 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $9.98 |
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Title: If Mountains Die: A New Mexico Memoir by John Treadwell Nichols, William Davis ISBN: 0393311597 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: July, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Healing into Action: A Leadership Guide for Creating Diverse Communities by Cherie R. Brown, George J. Mazza, National Coalition Building Institute ISBN: 0965973107 Publisher: Natl Coalition Building Inst Pub. Date: February, 1998 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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