Cheap The Milagro beanfield war, (Book) (John Treadwell Nichols) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Milagro beanfield war,

The Karl Marx Brothers in Nuevo Mexico
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!)

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Absolute magic
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

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Exhausting
The book seemed tiring, drawn out, depressing and pointless. Without much of a plot, more like a 'day in the life', I was hoping for character studies woven into the northern New Mexico culture and lifestyle, but couldn't get past the pointless, helpless, hopeless, and frankly disturbing actions and interactions of these folks. (Maybe that in itself was the point) Perhaps symbolic, the constant barrage of dead, dying, maimed and killed animals was disturbing and distracting. Good commentary on Anglo vs Hispanic, rich vs poor, yuppies vs locals, past vs present, but the book simply WORE ME OUT!