The Collected Works Of Billy The Kid - Michael Ondaatje

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF

BILLY THE KID -

MICHAEL ONDAATJE

A strange book. An anomaly. An unusual book. Written by Michael Ondaatje, better known as being the author of The English Patient, made into the film starring Ralph Fiennes. The Collected Works Of Billy The Kid is bricolage, a make-believe scrapbook of both the real and imagined. It's not quite just a book, however, it's more akin to a work of art; carefully thought-out and even more carefully composed, putting lay-out and design centre stage alongside the actual words. And what words they are, what beautiful turns of phrases. They are words of a poet, from the point of view of Billy The Kid who has 'seen pictures of great stars, drawings which show them straining to the centre that would explode their white if temperature and the speed they moved at shifted one degree.'

The only education Billy The Kid has had is that from violence of which the lessons have been many. He's been hot-housed in them from a very early age so acutely, so intensely that he's able to describe a man being shot in the head in the same way a scholar might describe a Cezanne. Unlike the well-educated connoisseurs of art, however, Billy is blessed with a sense of humour that's almost genius: 'When Charlie Bowdre married Manuela, we carried them on our shoulders, us on horses. Took them to the Shea Hotel, 8 rooms. Jack Shea at the desk said Charlie - everythings on the house, we'll give you the Bridal. No, no, says Charlie, dont bother, I'll hang onto her ears until I get used to it. HAWHAWHAW.'

Michael Ondaatje paints Billy The Kid as an Arthur Rimbaud-type figure, forever chasing a fugitive vision realised on occasion by such things as the sight of nature in the raw and sunlight beams in dusty dwellings. Describing himself as having a 'floating barracuda in the brain', Billy has a world-weariness about him that is at odds with one so young but then there aren't many others of a similar age who has a one-time friend called Pat Garrett on their tail.

'They say Pat Garrett's got your number,' as Bob Dylan once put it 'so sleep with one eye open when you slumber. Billy, they don't like you to be so free.'

So is Pat Garrett a Paul Verlaine to Billy The Kid's Rimbaud? The answer to that is 'Yes', or even a 'Oui, monsieur', particularly after being informed of how at the age of 15 Garrett had taught himself French but never told anyone about it and never spoke to anyone in French for the next 40 years. Garrett was 'an academic murderer', a 'sane assassin with a mind full of French he never used.' Apparently he was also 'frightened of flowers because they grew so slowly that he couldn't tell what they planned to do. His mind learned to be superior because of the excessive mistakes of those around him. Flowers watched him.' As in Baudelaire's Flowers Of Evil?

Did Billy The Kid ever stand a chance against such a man? Well, he stood a better chance than most but in the end only one could live and only one could end up in Boot Hill. Only one could end up with 'blood planets in his head', a 'fish stare', and buried still in handcuffs and leg irons. And of course, it was Billy The Kid, although like conjoined twins both he and Pat Garrett would pass into legend.

The Collected Works Of Billy The Kid is indeed a strange book. An anomaly. An unusual book. A thing of strange beauty.

John Serpico