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Jun 04, 2009

Jim rated it:

"Get away from me yer stupid chicken."

Oh man I love this book. There's a blurb from Larry McMurtry where he admits that it "strains one's powers of descrition" which pretty much sums it up. The Collected Works explores the interior life of Billy the Kid and his relationship with Pat Garrett. It's raw, funny, and frightening all in one go. Because 1) it's so interior, 2) Ondaatje excels at this sort of characterization, and 3) Billy is bat shit crazy, the exteriors More...

12 comments like (15 people liked it)

May 18, 2011

Leigh rated it:

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.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 02, 2008

John rated it:

Michael Ondaatje is certainly one of the world's greatest living writers. My admiration for his writing craft is boundless but I will nonetheless attempt at a dispirited review of his first novel-ish publication. Although this is his first "novel" (more on novel(ish)ness later), it ranks among his most unabashedly avant-garde next to The English Patient and his most recent Divisadero. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is one of the earliest attempts in North American letters at revi More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2007

John rated it:

I'd say this book is like a Terence Malick movie transformed into poetry/prose/a few pictures. It's fragmentary, nebulous, disintegrating, nonsensical, beautiful, weird, scary, quiet, even silent. It's got lots and lots of white space. For a reason. I think it's wonderful and I want to spend even more time with it, let it soak in a bit more before further reports. One thing to say: it's very much an Ezra Pound poetry as history sort of thing, but clearer (but only because we know the myth imme More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2008

Millicent rated it:

Poems, snippets, and pictures.
Hearty. Read it twice.

After shooting Gregory
this is what happened

I'd shot him well and careful
made it explode under his heart
so it wouldn't last long
was about to walk away
when this chicken paddles out to him
and as he was falling hops on his neck
digs the beak into his throat
straightens legs and heaves
a red and blue vein out

Meanwhile he fell
and the chicken walked aw More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 07, 2010

Tyler rated it:

I don’t see why you need my views on it.

But since you ask.

I do not claim to be an authority on poetry - least of all the experimental kind. Seems to me too many of thems that write it see a reader enjoying their work as a sign they did it wrong. Listening to me ramble on about it - you’d think I was one of them dumbass Conservatives as hates anything intellectual - but I really put great store in most literatures. It’s just that experimental poetry that gets my dander up. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 20, 2008

Tawny rated it:

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."

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 30, 2011

Dominic rated it:

Michael Ondaatje may be one of the most wildly inventive novelists we have. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a fictionalized retelling of a very beguiling person. It is also an artistic, abstract mosaic using a multigenre format (one of the first modern texts to do so). It will challenge and it will startle. The book is poetic from the very first page, and there are some "genres" that are especially memorable. The interview near the end is quite good. I found the poems par More...

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Nov 05, 2011

Rafe rated it:

I tend to waver a lot on what I think of any given Ondaatje book, but Collected Works has been at the top of my Favorites list since I discovered it in a class on multigenre writing as an undergrad. Reading this, I understood for the first time that genre can be fluid - something I had sort of known, but never been able to articulate - and that story happens as it is going to happen. I love how Ondaatje tells the story of Billy the Kid through a pastiche of memories, photographs, short fiction, More...

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Jan 15, 2008

Patrick rated it:

Interesting tale telling. I enjoyed the lack of pictures to fit the descriptions. It made me want to read more so I could fill those gaps. Switching between poems and stories form different characters was quite original. Another key point..... very dirty and gory.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 16, 2009

Emily-rose rated it:

I've actually read this one twice, most recently in a hostel in France. The book chronicles the misadventures of Billy the Kid and the shadowy personages that flit in and out of his short life--his friends, lawmen, prostitutes, etc. This is one of Michael Ondaatje's earliest "novels." It is very experimental, often breaking into verse, interrupted by period photographs--it's a dreamy, exotic hodge-podge. The prose passages contain some stunning images, which is what I've always r More...

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Feb 10, 2012

Azra rated it:

I had only read one other of Ondaatje's book before, which was Anil's Ghost. The ending irked me so much, I was a little hesitant to read another. I am glad I did. I really liked this one.

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a retelling of the life of the gunslinger, told in poetry, prose, imaginary newspaper accounts, photos, and interviews. In the story, Billy isn't only the rough killer is usually protrayed but he also has moments as an ordinary boy, whether it is dancin More...

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Mar 05, 2011

Karissa rated it:

I LOVE this. So much that after I finished, I spent some time reading about Billy the Kid's life, and then started rereading Ondaatje's book. This is one of those books that, like Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red, blurs the lines between novel and poetry. It needs to be savored slowly, and it's a book that doesn't seem to come together until you get to the end and then take the time to reread it. The first read was like wading through water -- enjoyable because Ondaatje's words are a joy t More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 07, 2011

Rob rated it:

This is the book that got Tom Romano thinking about incorporating multigenre research in his high school classes, and it's easy to see why he found it so inspiring. (Interesting side note: In a new afterword Ondaatje reveals that he did almost no outside research prior to or during writing. He based his writing on the two facts he knew – that Billy the Kid was 21 when he died, and he had killed 21 people. Virtually everything else is Ondaatje's invention, contrary to what Romano thought). The More...

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Nov 06, 2011

Jason rated it:

This is a difficult work to properly describe. Part poetry, part prose, part diary entries, part pulp novel excerpts, part pictures. This is a collection of parts fabricated about the legend of Billy the Kid. At times it feels like it is trying to uncover and to understand what had happened, at other times it is merely following in the path of his celebrity. That a picture of Ondaatje as a child, dressed up as a cowboy, concludes this book is only appropriate. It is a meditation, a collection an More...

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Jun 29, 2011

Reema rated it:

kind of amazing in its free-wheeling scope and bloody imagination. (also one of ondaatje's earliest works which feels totally daunting.) ondaatje supplements actual historical records of the outlaw with poetic/bloody takes on billy's private world and historical era. with the usual sure and evocative touch, ondaatje manages to make billy complex, terrifying, semi-sympathetic, and just a young bad boy all at once. when a writer makes me care about what happens and why to a character i would proba More...

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Aug 16, 2011

Matt rated it:

There are slivers of the truth in Ondaatje's Billy the Kid, all the surrounding players and characters. The settings, the New Mexican snows and sands. The poetry of it all, at least now, in our modern world, looking back and reflecting on what it was, or what it wasn't.

Essentially this is historical fiction as poetry. Even the prose is poetry. He can't help it. It flows naturally and gives a voice, a sorrow, a reality to the antihero Billy the Kid.

I love the many vignettes, t More...

3 comments like

Jul 11, 2008

Pierce rated it:

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 othe More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2010

Andrew rated it:

Other than a few poems, i've never read any Ondaatje, and this book really blew me away. I was drawn to it for the collage-like assemblage of texts (poems, stories, pictures, etc) that together work to blend history and mythology. The effect is wonderful. It's a quick read and so many wonderfully abject, violent, and sad moments. The one down side: every time I read the word "Billy" I couldn't help but think of Emilio Estevez. Him I could live without, but don't take away my Lou Diamon More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 21, 2011

Troy rated it:

I read it because it was the book that inspired Tom Romano to start multi-genre research. I loved the concept of telling a story through different types of writing and using different voices. But at times I got lost as to whose voice I was supposed to be hearing. However, it is a very quick read, I read it in one afternoon and I am the slowest of readers, so I do recommend people take a few hours to read through it...especially anyone interested in doing multi-genre in their classroom.

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Aug 18, 2009

C. added it

Interesting look at Billy the Kid's life through poetry, prose and tidbits of history thrown in. I skipped this one in my Western Lit class due to time constraints and the Blood Meridian monster project I was working on. I just read it in about an hour - I like the way Ondaatje mixes his poetry with plain prose. It's a nice piece, born of a sincere love and fascination for the American West by an outsider.

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Oct 15, 2010

Heather rated it:

i read this book while passing through billy the kid country in the american southwest, stunned and shattered by the mythology of the west and its intricacies. ondaatje captures the blood and skin of it, the drumming heart. i felt like i was dancing a crazy old waltz with the kid himself. i want to read it again and pass it along to anyone who is interested in the confounding stories of the american west.

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Oct 25, 2009

Kate rated it:

It was really well written but it got to the point that it was too fragmented for me to make sense out of anything. I thought the prose parts were pretty good but the poems really seemed a bit too far beyond me. I also enjoyed the use of different forms of media in the story but I really just saw it as an attempt that just didn't seem to work the way the author wanted it. Or else it just went way over my head, which is entirely possible.

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May 05, 2010

James rated it:

This is a difficult book to describe. It may be seen as poetry or as fiction or as some combination of the two. It deals with the historical figure of Billy the Kid as well as the legend that surrounds him. The language is beautiful and the way it's put together wraps the figure in even more enigmatic terms. It's a quick, short read that challenges the reader on every page.

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Sep 22, 2009

Matthew rated it:

I found this on Shameless's shelf and read it on the way to Minneapolis for a show. What a weird wonderful piece of historical fiction through the lens of pretention. Most enjoyable for a quick read. I suppose I could have savored it more, but I dug its varying forms and styles and modernity crammed into "history". The Bridal/bridle joke being the best pay off in the book.

Heh.

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Oct 11, 2008

Chris rated it:

Someday I'll give this the read it deserves. It's a fractured, multi-vocal affair that shifts from poetry to prose and back again. Interspersed with (presumably) historical transcriptions and images, it pieces together the life of the Kid in pretty ingenious ways. It's a slim volume and deserves to be read in a single sitting so the impressions can constellate properly and form the shimmering, nebulous picture of the half-mad Billy Ondaatje tries to conjure here, and that ain't at all how I r More...

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Oct 15, 2009

Patrick rated it:

I've been meaning to read this ever since I saw The Twenty-One Lives of Billy the Kid, a movie in which Billy is shot twenty-one times by a gunman off screen and talks to a bunch of people around an Eternal Campfire.

It delivers! I liked it very very much. It reminded me in some ways of Richard Brautigan (though Brautigan is much sillier).

Nothing more to add, really.

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 15, 2010

Alex rated it:

An early hybrid work from a writer who has become very mainstream. Not an easy book to describe or categorize, it is blended poetic fiction with a dash of reportage. Billy the Kid was as much a fictional character as he was a real person. This book is a skewed autopsy on his legend and a fascinating addition to it. Very much worth reading and pondering.

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Jul 29, 2011

Jamie rated it:

A beautiful blend of poetry and prose used to paint sometimes conflicted pictures of this legendary hero and outlaw. I am biased because I've always had a fascination with Billy the Kid, and this book was a big part of nurturing that interest from the first time I read it. I can take or leave many Ondaatje books, but this one is a keeper.

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Aug 05, 2011

Colin N. rated it:

This slight book is an intriguing collection of poems (many written in the imagined voice of Billy the Kid), prose, pictures, and fragments of other texts (real and imagined) that paint a picture of the life of Billy the Kid. Ondaatje has a wonderful way with language and certain phrases and images are lovely. And the work is excellent at evoking a specific tone and ambience that one imagines permeated the old West. Quite interesting.

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