Dynamic, interesting, creative, well-written, and I feel like I didn't fully understand it.

this was . . . wild tbh. no one tell my English teacher but I skimmed the gory parts hgjfdgfghfg. because holy shit this book got gross.

I . . . can appreciate a lot about this book, and I'd actually consider reading more Michael Ondaatje because I like his writing style, but I personally wouldn't actually recommend this one either

Truly bizarre and unexpected.

Interesting hybrid work of fiction, poetry, interview, etc. on the life of Billy the Kid. Refreshingly original and consistently engaging.

One might call this The Sketchbook of Michael Ondaatje. Like Billy the Kid's life, it is short and messy. Parts may be brilliant, but the whole never seems to come together.

This is a great book. Ondaatje mixes genres here, such as poetry, prose, interviews, and news clippings. It creates a collage that is intended to portray the mind of Billy the Kid, and is tender and brutal at the same time. I really love this book. I re-read passages numerous times just to float in the imagery and soak it up. I can't say I came away from my first reading understanding what Ondaatje is doing all of the time. There are more than a few passages that just baffle me, but somehow the last line will pull it together, though I'm not sure why it makes the whole thing coalesce. Overall, again, a great book, and I will be reading it again.

rather pedestrian account of such a colorful, if not always accurately portrayed or understood, individual... i found the collage concept to be unwieldy and jarring... reading poetry is not like reading prose, and there was too much poetry intermingled here... i will say i liked the poetry, as it varied in format and intent... the prose was rather mundane and vaguely historical in style... maybe my expectations were whetted by the book's blurb, which can be sketchy at times, absolutely wrong in others... the book brought out little of the dirt, grit, violence, mythology, or brashness of Billy and the West of the period... still, a first attempt that passes and leads to better writings later, so not all is wasted...

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
By Michael Ondaatje
This was fairly short but put together nicely. I've read a lot about him, and there isn't much I have found written by Billy himself. So having this much and fashioned into a story to make it flow is very nice.

Favorite quotes:
1. "My fingers touch/this soft blue paper notebook/control a pencil that shifts up and sideways/mapping my thinking going its own way/like light wet glasses drifting on polished wood."
2. "Not a story about me through their eyes then. Find the beginning, the slight silver key to unlock it, to dig it out. Here then is a maze to begin, be in."

Why was this book written? It's disjointed and not even intersting to read. Maybe there is some materminded intent, but I don't get it.

I just…don’t really know what to say about this one. I had to read it for my English class. I just was not interested in any aspect of this it was pretty boring and weird so like yeah

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid, by Michael Ondaatje, tells the story of the life of Billy the Kid through photographs, eyewitness accounts, poems, and tales. Parts of the book are written from the perspective of Billy the Kid, some from a unknown narrator, and other side characters that influenced Billy the Kid’s life. It mainly recollects the last few years before his death, although it jumps around in time quite a bit. The book tells wild stories about Billy the Kid’s adventures throughout the West, but also about his life as a regular person and of romances he had. The book begins with a list of those who were killed, by Billy the Kid and by others included in the story. It continues on to tell how Billy has run from the law and tells of the deaths of his partners and friends. Billy spends a lot of time at Sallie and John Chisum’s house, and has a close relationship with the them. Then, Billy is arrested and sent to prison, but he escapes. Shortly after his escape, he is shot in the head by Pat Garrett and dies, at the age of 22. The book ends with a short poem about what Billy looked like after he died and a passage about the unknown narrator in their hotel room that smells like smoke after a hard night. The theme of The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is that it is important to hear all of the perspectives in a story.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is one of the most beautiful and most complicated books I have ever read. Ondaatje’s writing is very beautiful and mysterious, and he does an amazing job weaving fact into his fiction. It was very hard to keep track of what was going on in the story and whose perspective it was being told from. Most passages I had to read three times each to understand the meaning. It is a short book, but there is so much creativity and power in the verses that there seems to be no limit. This book is definitely accelerated because of the difficulty of the writing and the different storylines that collide to tell the whole story of Billy the Kid. The book counters the idea of good guys and bad guys in the Wild West by telling the story from Billy’s perspective because it made him seem more human. It also pointed out how the whole goal of Pat Garrett, who is framed as the good guy, was to kill Billy, which isn’t a very good thing in the perspective of the book. Billy is a character that I came to really enjoy over the course of the book, and his perspectives and attention for detail made the story very strong. I really enjoyed this book and I think everyone should read it, but definitely people who like to read about the West should.