Ain’t Never had a Sweetheart, ain’t Never had a Home.
A review of The Collected Works of Billy the Kid
By Michael Ondaatje
ON ONDAATJE
Michael Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka in the 40s. In the 60s, he moved to Canada to get established and eventually recognized for his literary work. This is when Ondaatje started writing poetry that got published, and he released The Collected Works of Billy the Kid in 1970 to positive critical reception. This reception kickstarted Ondaatje’s career and he has gone on to write many more works, most noticeably The English Patient which went on to be adapted into a film that won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
While later works such as The English Patient would work with the novel format, at the point of Billy the Kid he was mostly utilizing poetry. This sense of interest in both styles of writing, though, is ingrained in the strange, jumpy stylings of the book. Where eight line poems create a page at one moment, the next four might be filled with prose. There also are photographs and a chapter formatted as a newspaper clipping. In fact, though, it is the marriage of these formats that paint the tale of the subject of Billy the Kid.
In the afterward of the novel, Ondaatje describes his experience writing Billy the Kid as swimming “into the deep end.” After a lifelong love of westerns, he finally decided to tackle the genre himself on his own terms. With this book, he was able to let a familiar subject get infused with voices which “contained multitudes.” This is where we see the most distinct connection between The Connected Works of Billy the Kid and its author, Michael Ondaatje. A perfect harmony of content, legend, and whatever crazy, poetic twist that one may desire.
A DOG EAT DOG LIFE
One of the most memorable chapters in The Collected Works of Billy the Kid wasn’t about Billy at all. Instead, it was a chapter about an inhumane dog breeding farm run by Livingstone. The same guy who shot his mom started using her money to fund his dog breeding ranch. Without making any profit, his mom continued to provide funds without even knowing his business.
The photo Ondaatje used on page 60 captures a traveling man with a dog behind his back. It showcases a concerned dog seeking help looking directly at the camera. On the other hand, the man is seen staring forward without any concern for the dog. The figures facing different directions symbolize their different views. With his head forward, Ondaatje’s photo is symbolic that this man is led by blind ambition and has no concern for the dog trying to hang on behind him. While it may very well be a photo of Livingstone, Ondaatje doesn’t address the photo directly. Because it’s black and white, this photograph adds a mysterious darkness to the story to complement Ondaatje’s lack of details.
A veterinarian in New Orleans couldn’t even tell what the breeds originally were.
Referring to his normal demeanor in public, it’s also said that “As if he left all his madness, all his perverse logic behind that fence on his farm” (Ondaatje 63). Many people have different claims on the morality and humanitarian aspects of breeding. Ultimately, a plethora of his 40 dogs demonstrated how they felt about Livingstone’s actions by killing and eating their ‘caretaker.’ They dogs wanted so much revenge they even chewed up his watch. The sheriff and the vet were so disgusted upon arrival of the property they shot all the dogs. The story taking place in the late 1800’s ends appropriately as using Livingstone’s shotgun and shovel they buried all forty dogs along with their deranged breeder.
BEHIND THE CURTAIN
Ondaajte does a clever trick in this book as he explores the legend and bloodstained truth about Billy the Kid. He never keeps the same format from page to page and this is critical to understand the book itself. It’s designed to keep us on our toes as we explore the deadly legacy of Billy the Kid and his gang. He does this by shifting format in terms of the type of prose or poem being used in a specific context. This is done more towards the end than the beginning of the book in order for us to see how the times would reflect the type of ending and legend and outlaw could indeed create. First, we have to understand what William Bonney’s thoughts on death, we get a glimpse of this early on in the book “crossed a crooked river / loving in my head / ambled dry on stubble / shot a crooked bird / Held it in my fingers / the eyes were small and far / it yelled like a trumpet / destroyed it with fear” (Ondaatje 10). It’s a man who doesn’t care about how death is but an end. There’s a callous kind of detachment here. He shoots the bird, picks it up, and snuffs it out. Yet, we don’t get any strong emotional descriptors. The poem is cold and disconnected. We see that there’s no value to life in his mind. By reading this we can understand one of the bigger formatting changes that Ondaatje does towards the end of the book in order to let us understand Billy more than we would expect. .
It begins in section ripped straight out of a newspaper, more specifically The Texas Star, March 1881. In it Ondaatje creates a conversation, a last interview that Billy the Kid gives as he’s prepared to be executed. It’s different from the longer prose formatting and the atmospheric poetry with its tiny text and reporting style. It’s a last conversation between the cocky Kid who assumes he’s going to escape and get his vengeance. “I: But right now you’ve threatened to kill him if you escape this hanging. B: WHEN I escape, yes.” (Ondaatje 85) Billy has begun to feel like he’s invincible. People are facinated by the Kid and all of his exploits. Remember people love the outlaws even after their days are long behind them. We see this with poor Frank James, “When Jim’s grandfather met him, he was the doorman at the Fresco Theatre. GET YOUR TICKET TORN UP BY FRANK JAMES the poster said, and people came for that rather than the film. Frank would say, ‘Thanks for coming, go right in.’” (Ondaatje 21). There’s a side effect however to this, and something that Billy’s death creates, it’s that of a legend. I had never heard of Frank James until I read this book, but everyone knows Billy the Kid and his tragic end. What Ondaajte is trying to point out here is that sometimes those that last long are the ones the public forgets. We begin to understand why Billy may not want to escape the cycle that he’s in. The necklace of blood is a but a curse, but one that will make him live forever.
The dime store novel we get a glimpse of that legend, of Billy the Kid riding off on horseback with his darling princess. We as the reader know that it wasn’t as romantic based on the “Princess’s” account earlier in the book. Paulita Maxwell has some words about her portrait in the dime store novel, “There was a story that Billy and I had laid our plans to escape to old Mexico and had fixed the date for the night just after that on he was killed. There was another tale that we proposed to elope riding double on one horse. Neither story was true and the one about eloping on one horse was a joke” (Ondaatje 100). The reality is different than the story being presented. The point being made here is that it’s easier to sell a hero trying to save his love and ride off to the unknown west. The romanticism of the west paves over the rougher details. The Billy the Kid presented in this novel would never shoot a raven for fun and squish the life out of it. And the Paulita presented as the Spanish princess is weak and needs saving, unlike the one who claimed she took pride in her horsemanship. The mythology of the west needs to smooth over these rough edges to create passages like this. “‘You are a mucho hombre, Yangui, very much man! A man like you could help me rule this wild kingdom! Will you remain as my guest for a time?’ (Kiss)” (Ondaatje 106) We see the power of stories and the need to pave over the mess.
It’s very telling that The Kid was right. That the man feared by the west would become one of its greater legends. That his short life and willingness to take lives and not fear for his own would be burned into our brains. He’s not Frank James who’s sad life would be forgotten, he’s Billy the Kid, a legend until the end. It’s by using these formatting changes that Onaatje creates that feeling of what makes a legend and whether we should be ashamed of it. It forces us to confront the myths of the west and whether we truly ever knew it.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Ondaatje’s “The Collected Works of Billy the Kid” is not a typical piece of work you can tie to one genre. The majority of the book is written as poetry from the perspective of William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, with additional segments of poetry and prose written from the perspectives of those who knew him. These sections of poetry and prose are enhanced with several photos and drawings throughout the book, ten in total if you include the blank “photo”” the work begins with. This multi-modal and genre defying approach to this semi-biographical work makes for an extremely quick read, if not one that might leave you scratching your head. Ondaatje presents Bonney as a complex and tortured soul, one that has little issue with killing his fellow man, but that has deep sympathy for animals, a theme that carries throughout the work. Violence is strewn throughout the each as Bonney blasts his way through the American West, but moments of tenderness and empathy are highlighted through his treatment of animals. Even is this empathy does actually mean killing the animal, Bonney wants to ensure he ends the creatures pain, whereas he has no qualms about leaving a man bleeding out.
Legend and reality are nearly impossible to separate when it comes to William Bonney, aka Billy The Kid, and Ondaatje leans into that fact with this work. This air of mysticism around Bonney allows for Ondaatje to place himself into his shoes and wax poetically on the hardships of Bonney’s life and his fascinating relationship with death. By combining dime novel descriptions, contemporary accounts, and his own authorial skill, Ondaatje paints the picture of a deeply broken, twisted, and altogether fascinating man. Staring through Ondaatje’s version of Billy’s eyes is similar to witnessing a car crash: it’s horrific and grisly, but fascinating and you can’t help but continue.
