The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
by Michael Ondaatje
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 497)
Read in March, 2008
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 Ame...more
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Read in July, 2008
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 f...more
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 f...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
the West
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
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Read in February, 2008
recommended to Kyla by:
K.
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 away
still tugging at the vein
till it was 12 yards long
as if...more
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 away
still tugging at the vein
till it was 12 yards long
as if...more
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Read in November, 2008
recommends it for:
Anyone who likes westerns or Ondaatje
Very vivid, fiction-based-on-fact account of the life and loves of billy the kid. Interchanges verse with prose and a few spooky, hazy looking daguerrotypes. Zeroes in on specific moments in Billy's life (making love to his friend's wife, crossing a river naked, hiding out in a barn sick with fever) as opposed to giving any kind of biographical/historical account. The poems are especially beautiful even when dealing with the grotesque.
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Read in December, 2007
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.
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Read in July, 2008
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."
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."
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Read in September, 2000
recommends it for:
everyone
A highly original book that if it were a painting instead of prose, it would be categorized as mixed-media. Ondaatje's slim book is an arresting hodgepodge of poetry, authentic and false documents, photography, diary entries, ballad, overheard dialogue, interior monologue, newspaper articles, interview,etc.
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Read in March, 2007
I've taken to describing this book as "What would happen if William Faulkner wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Concisely. In Canada."
So it's no surprise that it blew me away.
So it's no surprise that it blew me away.
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Read in March, 1998
"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." (20)
In Ondaatje's inimitable style, a layered and sensory view of an outlaw.
In Ondaatje's inimitable style, a layered and sensory view of an outlaw.
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An unusual, slim little multi-genre novela. Ondaatje mixes poetry and prose with want-ads, photographs, dictionary and encylopedia entries, dialogues, and play-script to create this haunting and beautiful little book.
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Read in January, 2004
I was on a big Ondaatje kick, but 4 years later I can't remember anything about any of these stories - except that I think the phrasing and structure was non-linear. Quick to read, but slower to get the meaning from.
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Reading this on the bus, I was so entranced, I missed my stop. Ondaatje is a real craftsman and this historiographic narrative poetry is a fascinating vehicle for the story of Billy the Kid.
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Read in January, 2003
I had to read this for a class, and it's a book I never would have picked up on my own. I loved the use of different genres to paint a picture of this classic character.
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Read in May, 2008
My only gripe with the book is that it wasn't long enough! I would heartlly recommend it to poetry and prose fans alike, very imaginative and very late 60's.
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Looking forward to more time with this one.
And no, I don't care if you like it mostly.
Certain persons are excepted.
You know who you are.
And no, I don't care if you like it mostly.
Certain persons are excepted.
You know who you are.
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recommends it for:
anyone willing to forget the boundaries of genre.
This book destroys conventions. It is a punch-you-in-the-face then throw-you-down-the-stairs experience, and a must for every serious reader.
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Read in January, 1987
Ondaatje rightly is criticized for writing stories that are all style and no substance. But, damn, this made me want to be an Old West outlaw.
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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.
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Read in January, 1997
When I want to write, this is the book I go back to over and over again. In many ways, this is the book I want to write.
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 4.11 (398 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 4.10 (330 ratings) number of reviews: 39popular shelves
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quote
"She had lived in that house fourteen years, and every year she had demanded of John that she be given a pet of some strange exotic breed. Not that she did not have enough animals. She had collected several wild and broken animals that, in a way, had become exotic by their breaking. Their roof would have collapsed from the number of birds who might have lived there if the desert hadn't killed three- quarters of those that tried to cross it. Still every animal that came within a certain radius of that house was given a welcome--the tame, the half born, the wild, the wounded."
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