Rly cool actually

avant-garde, postmodern, revisionist, a deconstruction, self-conscious and self-aware, prose from another planet, beautifully brutal, the kind of spikey poetry you see in some of the books of Hawke or even some DeLillo (i'm thinking Libra), the kind of book that you read and reread and remember forever. at least this reader did.

all of the above does nothing to sum up the yearning and strangeness and rightness of this underrated modern classic.

i mentioned 'poetry' but i am talking about the prose. poetic prose, yes a cliche and yes wonderful when it is done right. and hey, there's actual poetry here too. 'poetry written by Billy the Kid' apparently. obviously not, but this is postmodernism or whatever so does it even matter? the poetry captures the character perfectly. perfect poetry.

Billy the Kid, vicious animal
Pat Garrett, so sane he's insane
Billy the Kid, the mythology removed and built up again

the fragmented, cut-up style is ingenius. historical records, first person accounts, news blurbs, photographs, poetry, pulp fiction... it all comes together to paint a picture of a timeless place populated with timeless characters enacting a timeless dance with fate and death. fate and death, fate and death, fate and death. is this really a Western? i suppose so, but it is so much else as well.

i'm looking through my old photocopy of the novel (thanks, Interlibrary Loan of 20 years ago) and i'm feeling a need to read this a third time. maybe i can then write a better review. oh you beautiful novel, i want to put my hands all over you again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6eSks...

n  n

Really enjoyable, quick read that is idiosyncratic in format and language. I wouldn't recommend it as the ultimate informative guide on William Bonney, but equally it is not trying to be that.
The format of the book emphasises quite naturally the life of such an outlaw, with information being sourced in various ways affording it a consistent air of incompletion. You're left with no choice but to take each perspective with equal weight.
The poetry sections are maybe my favourite thing about this, which I can only assume is Michael Ondaatje taking artistic liberties in order to imbue Bonney's perspective with vivid and provocative imagery, but its totally captivating. A lot of turns of phrase and similies that add touches of surrealism, comedy, and dark solemnity in a very natural way.
It is deceptively easy to read, in the sense that by the time you've finished, it has gone by in a flash, and though you have a full story - though not completely chronological - you experience it as a police chase racing by, or hearsay around a small town, rather than feeling directly immersed in these events. Understandably this might be a downside for some readers, but I feel it warrants repeated reading. It dares you to keep up with this mad world of truly bizzarre people.

Like that whole bit about Pat Garrett teaching himself french and never using it, its just hilarious and fascinating. These guys are unhinged. This book is the wrong side of the tracks, and you are piecing together this scandalous world through glimpses and hearsay, to no avail.

3.5 stars. I really liked it. I haven't read a book in this style before, not usually a fan of poetry. BUT... this book made me love Billy the Kid. What a tragic story. It's crazy to think he was only 2 years older than me when he died!

The poetry in this book was beautiful and tragic and... funny... in some cases. I was surprised by how much of a bad ass Billy was! The interview toward the end of the book made me laugh because I loved how Billy just told off the reporter. I don't usually think of historical figures as being... like... normal people who were just like us. But, in this book, I realized how Billy was just a young man with a sense of humor.

The style of poetry, interviews, and prose was unique. I haven't read a book written like this before.

I kept stopping to highlight sentences because they were so powerful and beautiful. It was fun to read!

I loved how Billy was so audacious, and I liked how this book showed how young he was. He wasn't just an outlaw. He was a kid with buckteeth and who laughed a lot.

The ending was sad, but I knew that was coming. But it still made me sad. I wish he hadn't died.

it wasn’t fun to read, in fact it made me feel really gross inside but goddamn michael put his whole ondaatjussy into this book

I must admit that I found the poetry a little bit hard to absorb, and the whole time I was reading I kept wondering what my ex-boyfriend (a poet) would think about it. The prose, on the other hand was wonderful, and I wish there had been more of both because by the time I got used to the two together, the book was over. So many reviewers here talk about re-reading, and I think I may have to do so myself.

I didn’t know who Billy the Kid was and the little I knew of the Wild West was largely based on childish stereotypes. In a span of few weeks I’ve read Cormac McCarthy’s ”Blood Meridian" and Michael Ondaatje’s ”The Collected Works of Billie the Kid”. They make a nice pairing. ”Meridian” is so brutal that it kind of deadens the perception of violence. Maybe that’s the reason I liked ”The Kid” finding it much more humane, even tender at times. Or maybe the secret behind the book is in the mix of poetry and prose balancing between funny and horrifying, between touching and violent. Or maybe it’s the collage form that Ondaatje employs: somehow the portrait assembled from the scattered pieces is never quiet as scary as the torn down original.

sex on the toilet; inbred dogs; barefoot women making stew between shootouts

I've taken to describing this book as "What would happen if William Faulkner wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as a poem. Concisely. In Canada."

So it's no surprise that it blew me away.

I have a theory about my difficulties with poetry. I think, because I kind of discovered prose outside of learning, I've always viewed it as past-time more anything. My parents got me reading early, I feel like I was reading books quite early. I certainly had a well-established addiction to Famous Five by the time I was in first class (seven-ish?).

But never poetry. The only poetry I was ever really exposed to was in the classroom. Thinking about it like that I can understand how other kids felt about books.

Although I recently found a copybook full of poems I wrote about aged ten, but I think that was instigated by some competition in school. There's no motivation like prizes.

So I have this thing where my eyes start to skitter past lines if I'm tackling something heavy. They just start jumping up and down the page of their own accord. I have to really force myself to focus and take my time.

The point is: this collected works completely bypasses that. Because it's half poetry, half short-form prose. And you just naturally transition between the two. And the metrically structured stuff is rooted in the context of the rest of it.

And the whole thing is just so beautifully written I could cry.

SIX WORD REVIEW: Favorite line: “Slip me a gun.”

Interesting, and well-written, because Michael Ondaatje. I wasn’t particularly familiar with the particulars of Billy the Kid’s short and violent life before listening to this title.
I liked how Ondaatje wove information known about Billy’s exploits from accounts of the time and photographs. I suspect that if I’d known more about the legend, I’d have been more moved by this work.