Billy the Kid

From only my brief past knowledge of BTK, as well as what I've discovered following a brief perusal on the Wikipedia, I find that the element of paradox strikes the very core of his mythic legend. A man who lusted for murder and the occasional Mexican sombrero should, by all conventional standards, be reviled in his cloak of infamy. This was (is) not the case for young Billy, however, whose mythical status is still adored/disputed by contemporary historians and occasionally families through oral tradition. As it is difficult for these qualities to effectively coexist, here is Ondaatje's The Collected Works of Billy the Kid which mixes historical account and multi-layered mythology through the juxtaposition of poetry and prose. The text blends a variety of perspectives in order to establish a frequently filth-laden account that feels surprisingly natural, even when considering the jarring collision that comes from stylistic shifts. I appreciate the recurrent mention of characters (as with Sally Chisum), although I felt more inclined to drink in the lack of stability in overall terms of narration; narration is probably the wrong word, but rather the sense of credible authenticity. This is much like history more broadly, cultivated from news clippings and word of mouth that eventually build legend. Take “The Kid Tells All” (81), which incorporates an account of the conflicting character traits for which the Kid stands; “I: But you were wanted for cattle rustling weren’t you?. Yes… [but] they had to practically catch me with stolen cattle in my bed.” Ondaatje occasionally facilitates this kind of humor when constructing pieces within the collection; in this case, it paints Billy as a somewhat likeable, certainly accessible, hero of sorts. The counterpoint to this argument is that he is allegedly performing this interview from jail, with the Texas Star granted rights to exclusivity. The selected images of BTK accompany the media fixation well, and Ondaatje manages to keep the focus fresh despite the relatively narrow scope of the surface subject matter. One of the poems, on page 27, utilizes a dark agenda (involving internal damage) with a strict poetic device. Through the variance in the lenses, Ondaatje’s collection provides a surprisingly deep pool for interpretation that likely makes a statement about myth in perpetuity more generally.