The Milagro Beanfield War

The Milagro Beanfield War
by John Nichols

The Milagro Beanfield War
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Book Summary Information

Author: John Nichols
Illustrator: Rini Templeton
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2000-02-15
ISBN: 0805063749
Number of pages: 456
Publisher: Owl Books

Book Reviews of The Milagro Beanfield War

Book Review: Nichols's Masterpiece, a gem in American literature
Summary: 5 Stars

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.

Summary of The Milagro Beanfield War

Joe Mondragon, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots, and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And so began-though few knew it at the time-the Milagro beanfield war. But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than by battlefield victories. Gradually, the small farmers and sheepmen begin to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. And downstate in the capital, the Anglo water barons and power brokers huddle in urgent conference, intent on destroying that symbol before it destroys their multimillion-dollar land-development schemes. The tale of Milagro's rising is wildly comic and lovingly ter, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, gropes its way toward its own stubborn salvation.

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