Monday, January 26, 2009
Billy the Kid - Not BTK
I thought I would mention briefly that the blog references to "BTK" are a bit scary. I am not sure if any of you know about the "BTK killer," however, I would appreciate if from now on we merely called him "Billy" or "Bonney." Thank you. If you would like more information on the true "BTK killer," please visit this quick and convient wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTK_killer
Sunday, January 25, 2009
BTK
Ondaatje’s collection was very interesting to me, because while reading it I didn’t exactly get the feeling that I was reading poetry or a narrative story. I guess it kind of felt like reading a book of short stories with the same theme or characters sprinkled throughout them. I’m not really sure, but it felt different than most books I’ve ever read, and I definitely enjoyed it.
This collection’s goal seemed to be one of recording a life (perhaps a “famous” or “infamous” life) through the lenses of many different people, people that didn’t like Billy, people that did, authority figures out to get him, close friends, lovers, and Billy himself. Though I don’t know how much truth is inside any of these accounts, their stories are lively and beautifully written.
I found a close attention to lighting throughout the book’s entirety. The first page of the book begins this obsession as the speaker notes to “please notice when you get the specimens that they were made with the lens wide open and many of the best exposed when my horse was in motion” (5). Lighting seems as if it is something very close to Billy’s heart, though perhaps I am reading it wrong and it is close to Ondaatje’s heart, or it has a deeper symbolic meaning throughout the book that I haven’t grasped yet. Either way, the light in the house of the Chisum’s is constantly mentioned. The way Sallie shuts out the light from 11-3 in the afternoon, the way Billy wakes up in the white room of their house feeling happy and as if the walls have been pushed back to make the room wider, more inviting.
The writing is often very exact, pointing out every cobweb in a room, every dust particle stirring in a face, every glint of light from a doorway (“I am 4 feet inside the room / in the brown cold dark / the doorway’s slide of sun / three inches from my shoes” (74).) The sun is wonderfully personified. Its hands pluck the hair off Billy’s head and pull the skin raw, causing blood and bubbles and pain.
Many of the characters in the book seem to see death as ordinary, everyday, mundane, so much so that they continue a poker game since they cannot bury a body until morning. There are gruesome descriptions strung against eloquent accounts of the human body and the natural world. There is humor and an unemotional quality about death that makes reading about it all the more emotional. Overall a very multidimensional and well-written biography of a multidimensional man.
Nicolette Telech
This collection’s goal seemed to be one of recording a life (perhaps a “famous” or “infamous” life) through the lenses of many different people, people that didn’t like Billy, people that did, authority figures out to get him, close friends, lovers, and Billy himself. Though I don’t know how much truth is inside any of these accounts, their stories are lively and beautifully written.
I found a close attention to lighting throughout the book’s entirety. The first page of the book begins this obsession as the speaker notes to “please notice when you get the specimens that they were made with the lens wide open and many of the best exposed when my horse was in motion” (5). Lighting seems as if it is something very close to Billy’s heart, though perhaps I am reading it wrong and it is close to Ondaatje’s heart, or it has a deeper symbolic meaning throughout the book that I haven’t grasped yet. Either way, the light in the house of the Chisum’s is constantly mentioned. The way Sallie shuts out the light from 11-3 in the afternoon, the way Billy wakes up in the white room of their house feeling happy and as if the walls have been pushed back to make the room wider, more inviting.
The writing is often very exact, pointing out every cobweb in a room, every dust particle stirring in a face, every glint of light from a doorway (“I am 4 feet inside the room / in the brown cold dark / the doorway’s slide of sun / three inches from my shoes” (74).) The sun is wonderfully personified. Its hands pluck the hair off Billy’s head and pull the skin raw, causing blood and bubbles and pain.
Many of the characters in the book seem to see death as ordinary, everyday, mundane, so much so that they continue a poker game since they cannot bury a body until morning. There are gruesome descriptions strung against eloquent accounts of the human body and the natural world. There is humor and an unemotional quality about death that makes reading about it all the more emotional. Overall a very multidimensional and well-written biography of a multidimensional man.
Nicolette Telech
Billy the Kid, a failure
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a strange collection from Ondaatje, an author best known for his dense novels. I feel that much of the book was concerned with the power of the image in creating a historical narrative. By including the photographs (what most of us would consider the truest form of an image) side by side with prose and poetry, he has made the insufficiency of the image apparent. We get much more background of the character of Billy the Kid or William Bonney from the sprawling prosaic sections, and perhaps to a lesser extent the poetic ones. Certainly the least historical content, or more generally the least information, comes from the photographs.
The most vivid description comes from the prosaic sections and I take this as a clear sign that Ondaatje believes in the power of prose. He often relegates the poetic sections to fanciful childishness or jagged/incomplete description. There seems to be a hierarchy of usefulness established by Ondaatje in this work: prose is most informative, poetry is less informative and the image alone is the least informative. (This comes as no surprise, Ondaatje goes on from writing this book to become a famous novelist.) I got the sense of the violence of the Old West from the prosaic sections to be sure, but the poetic sections failed to fail properly. If Ondaatje is trying to argue for the insufficiency of the image (i.e., poetry), he has it wrong. If one equates poem with image, then yes Ondaatje's use of poetics is a sufficient failure, however I for one do not equate the image directly with the poem. Although I agree that the image (alone) is not in service to us in this age of mechanical reproduction, Ondaatje's attempt to demonstrate this by simply making the poetics half-assed(for lack of a better word) falls a little short.
The most successful aspect of this collection for me is Ondaatje's use of anachronism to demonstrate the tendency we often have to impose modern ideologies on past events. The most glaring situation being when he talks at length about a modern movie theater (p. 24). I would have enjoyed seeing this understated aspect to be explored further.
The other part that I enjoyed was the selection from Billy the Kid (1971, Charlton Press):
The juxtaposition of the violent and sexual tale that Ondaatje weaves with the cleaned-up for kids version that the comics presents is indicative of how mythology gets prepared for consumption by children. Although the violence and sex are still there, they are expressed in (what would be deemed in our society) child-appropriate forms.
The most vivid description comes from the prosaic sections and I take this as a clear sign that Ondaatje believes in the power of prose. He often relegates the poetic sections to fanciful childishness or jagged/incomplete description. There seems to be a hierarchy of usefulness established by Ondaatje in this work: prose is most informative, poetry is less informative and the image alone is the least informative. (This comes as no surprise, Ondaatje goes on from writing this book to become a famous novelist.) I got the sense of the violence of the Old West from the prosaic sections to be sure, but the poetic sections failed to fail properly. If Ondaatje is trying to argue for the insufficiency of the image (i.e., poetry), he has it wrong. If one equates poem with image, then yes Ondaatje's use of poetics is a sufficient failure, however I for one do not equate the image directly with the poem. Although I agree that the image (alone) is not in service to us in this age of mechanical reproduction, Ondaatje's attempt to demonstrate this by simply making the poetics half-assed(for lack of a better word) falls a little short.
The most successful aspect of this collection for me is Ondaatje's use of anachronism to demonstrate the tendency we often have to impose modern ideologies on past events. The most glaring situation being when he talks at length about a modern movie theater (p. 24). I would have enjoyed seeing this understated aspect to be explored further.
The other part that I enjoyed was the selection from Billy the Kid (1971, Charlton Press):
The juxtaposition of the violent and sexual tale that Ondaatje weaves with the cleaned-up for kids version that the comics presents is indicative of how mythology gets prepared for consumption by children. Although the violence and sex are still there, they are expressed in (what would be deemed in our society) child-appropriate forms.
Ondaatje and Billy
Ondaatje creates a beautiful and violent account of Billy The Kid through his mixture of form and content. First, he takes the happenings of this figure and makes a historical and exaggerated fiction style to develop the strange events during his life. Ondaatje does this well with the different forms of poetry and fusion of prose, dialog, and pictures. The prose provides a voice of narration to allow the reader to delve into the personality of Billy The Kid, while the short block poetry and interludes show the voice of Ondaatje trying to account the events as if he were there witnessing them. The dialog creates a sense of history for the reader to maybe grasp that the dialog was the actual words of Billy and his interviewer. Also, the pictures appear to be the closest to the actual account of this figure. His devices not only function well in this sense, but also in the vast amount of speakers in this collection. With the many intertwined characters, the collection serves as a type of documentary. I also enjoy the fact that the story follows a sort of stereotypical western plot with the undertone of historical “accuracy.”
The tension between the beautiful descriptions and the violent juxtaposition serves as a means to the graphic American storytelling. For example, the grotesque account of drinking too much allows this image to be defamiliarized and seen in a more artistic way: “…I start throwing up, the wind carrying it like a yellow ribbon” (70). Then, even more light and beautiful: “flies out like a pack of miniature canaries. A flock. A covey of them, like I’m some magician or something” (70). I love this tension, showing an ugly side to the cliché party, drinking, sex story. I also noticed Ondaatje’s repetition of oranges and orange peels, which kind of represent the feminine quality or contribution to this cowboy story: “oranges/peeled half peeled/bright as hidden coins against the pillow/…sits on her leg here/sweeping off the peels/traces the thin bones on me” (21).
My favorite part of the book is the “book” on pages 98-102. This sort of collage serves like an excerpt to show the exaggeration and fast-paced storytelling that is stereotypical of a Western. The media in here shows a sort of fabrication among the historical documentation of Billy The Kid that justifies his legacy. It shows what a charismatic, cool under pressure, and ruthless brute showing some compassion. Basically, it pegs his personality in mere pages that shows what the whole collection was trying to convey. It also shows the improbability of some of the actions of Billy. I believe this medium was intended to be recounted for children, which omits the realistic gore and sex and adult themes and happenings that much of the collection conveys. I like how it contrasts with the story about the cat under the floorboards: a violent account versus the glorified one you read in novels and see in the movies. Overall, Ondaatje’s strength lies in the ability to capture different mediums in order to tell a layered biography and story, which incorporates appearance versus reality and the idea of realism.
The tension between the beautiful descriptions and the violent juxtaposition serves as a means to the graphic American storytelling. For example, the grotesque account of drinking too much allows this image to be defamiliarized and seen in a more artistic way: “…I start throwing up, the wind carrying it like a yellow ribbon” (70). Then, even more light and beautiful: “flies out like a pack of miniature canaries. A flock. A covey of them, like I’m some magician or something” (70). I love this tension, showing an ugly side to the cliché party, drinking, sex story. I also noticed Ondaatje’s repetition of oranges and orange peels, which kind of represent the feminine quality or contribution to this cowboy story: “oranges/peeled half peeled/bright as hidden coins against the pillow/…sits on her leg here/sweeping off the peels/traces the thin bones on me” (21).
My favorite part of the book is the “book” on pages 98-102. This sort of collage serves like an excerpt to show the exaggeration and fast-paced storytelling that is stereotypical of a Western. The media in here shows a sort of fabrication among the historical documentation of Billy The Kid that justifies his legacy. It shows what a charismatic, cool under pressure, and ruthless brute showing some compassion. Basically, it pegs his personality in mere pages that shows what the whole collection was trying to convey. It also shows the improbability of some of the actions of Billy. I believe this medium was intended to be recounted for children, which omits the realistic gore and sex and adult themes and happenings that much of the collection conveys. I like how it contrasts with the story about the cat under the floorboards: a violent account versus the glorified one you read in novels and see in the movies. Overall, Ondaatje’s strength lies in the ability to capture different mediums in order to tell a layered biography and story, which incorporates appearance versus reality and the idea of realism.
Billy the Kid
On Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje’s poems as the outlaw Billy the Kid are unlike any collection of poems I have ever read before. There was such an in-depth immersion of Ondaatje in this character of his, “Billy the Kid,” that it was hard to fully comprehend the reason for the poetry. From what I gain of this author’s other works, Ondaatje is one to develop all aspects of the story in vigorous detail. I came into the reading of this book knowing very little of the story of Billy the Kid, so I let the text construct what it wanted on a blank sheet.
The book seemed to be conflicting between wanting a prose project and semi-structured poetry. I cannot understand the contrast between the poetry and prose, but it would seem as if the prose works were a background for the characters and the poetry is some sort of character development portion. The prose from pg.32-37 to me seemed almost purely informational, and then the switch to poetry allows for a small interpretation of the character’s mannerisms. The different photographs in between the written work come to legitimize the sort of journal feel that the collection seems to illustrate. The language remains consistent throughout, allowing the switches from prose work to poetry to remain subtle, establishing a flowing narration alongside poetic development. It is almost as if someone has broken up an autobiographic novel with some poetic notes.
Michael Ondaatje’s poems as the outlaw Billy the Kid are unlike any collection of poems I have ever read before. There was such an in-depth immersion of Ondaatje in this character of his, “Billy the Kid,” that it was hard to fully comprehend the reason for the poetry. From what I gain of this author’s other works, Ondaatje is one to develop all aspects of the story in vigorous detail. I came into the reading of this book knowing very little of the story of Billy the Kid, so I let the text construct what it wanted on a blank sheet.
The book seemed to be conflicting between wanting a prose project and semi-structured poetry. I cannot understand the contrast between the poetry and prose, but it would seem as if the prose works were a background for the characters and the poetry is some sort of character development portion. The prose from pg.32-37 to me seemed almost purely informational, and then the switch to poetry allows for a small interpretation of the character’s mannerisms. The different photographs in between the written work come to legitimize the sort of journal feel that the collection seems to illustrate. The language remains consistent throughout, allowing the switches from prose work to poetry to remain subtle, establishing a flowing narration alongside poetic development. It is almost as if someone has broken up an autobiographic novel with some poetic notes.
Ondaatje Creates a "Western Gothic"
Although it seems like everyone else has beaten me to the punch, I’d like to add my praise for Ondaatje’s book. Part of the reason I enjoyed this book so much, was its ability to take an approach I normally wouldn’t like. Photos, drawings and faux newspaper interviews would probably be placed in the category of kitschy, or at least campy, but somehow the mundane authenticity of much of Ondaatje’s poetry and prose make an otherwise gimmicky concept, quiet, old and sad.
I really enjoyed the shifting between poetry and prose, and although I know the matching of medium and content was deliberate, I haven’t quite figured out the reasoning behind it. What stood out most to me was the tone, which I can really only think to categorize as Western Gothic. Ondaatje uses irony, the grotesque, and our conceptions of frontier culture to construct complex characters, which surprise us, and simultaneously fall into some stereotype or another. There’s also an element of exaggeration or embellishment for the sake of allegory or illusion to a biblical or mythological figure (all of which are present in the established Southern Gothic genre).
The poem detailing the death of Gregory (page 15) utilizes nearly all of the devises of what would be considered this idea of Western Gothic. The poem is written in a distinct western dialect (“I’d shot him well and careful”), and employs both absurdity and the grotesque. The image of a chicken ripping a vein from a man’s neck is certainly misshapen, but the inclusion of “it was 12 yards long/ as if it held that body like a kite” is nothing short of ridiculous. Also, the poem for me seemed to have a strong illusion to Prometheus, despite my inability to relate the two figures. Lastly, the poem ends with an almost inappropriate irony- a stereotypical western saying made laughable by a literal chicken.
The prose piece on 22 also has a strong gothic presence, mainly in the dramatization of the scene. Charlie walks in a straight line, bleeding from the stomach, “already dead” towards Pat Garret, who simply says “Hello, Charlie,” is an obvious heroism of what would have otherwise been another mundane casualty of the west. Once again, Ondaatje ends with a strong illusion, this time to the apocalypse, writing “No windows, the door open so we could see. Four horses outside.”
It seems all the characters are given an unexpected depth and complexity that’s directly juxtaposed by the inconsequential nature in which most of them die. Aside from BTK, (whose intrigue is in large part to his position as the narrator), Pat Garrett commands the most attention, and is more developed than most characters in poetry. The prose piece detailing the complexity of Garrett (page 28-29) draws on the reader’s inability to identify Garrett as a protagonist or antagonist. Also, the absurdity of his biography seems typically Southern Gothic, an “academic murderer,” fluent in unused French and drinking enough to kill another man.
The Collection's originality and authenticity of Ondaatje’s voice that allow him to delve so completely into a world that is rarely examined through a poetic scope.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Fiction or Prose Poem in CWBK; Does it matter?
It's Kate Litterer here. First, I have to mention that CWBK is one of the best works I've read in regards to developing a speaker in a group of poems. We learn all about Billy (BTK) through his personal accounts of his experiences, others' voices, and non-fictional accounts, such as interviews or photographs. Reading through the book with attention to the sequence of different types of writing (poems, prose poems/fiction, photos, etc.) really helped me to get a rounded view of BTK's experiences.
I definitely see a different style of writing between the poems and the works of fiction (or prose poems). The poems appear mostly through Billy's voice and I feel that they work almost like he's telling secrets through them. Interestingly, (perhaps this is a bias I hold against the rural badass character whom I'm assuming didn't study poetry) the poems are written very beautifully and provide me with insights into how Billy felt during his experiences. For example, on page 16, Billy's character says "[...] later my hands cracked in love juice / fingers paralysed by it arthritic / these beautiful fingers I couldn't move / faster than a crippled witch now" (lines 18-21). Realistically, this scene makes sense for a rough-and-tumble guy like Billy to have a sexual encounter and feel romantically toward a woman, but regarding the actual diction, descriptions like "arthritic" "beautiful fingers" that move as slow as a "crippled witch" really create a sensitive and vulnerable character. I think that Ondaatje uses the shorter poems to show the speaker a vulnerable, safer Billy, unlike the Billy we see in his prose or fiction; the conniving, story-telling Billy.
One of my favorite passages of prose in the collection starts on page 59. Billy is speaking and relays to us a story originally told by John Chisum: Livingstone, whom he had sung with, turned out to be a mad dog-breeder. This section of prose has a stronger narration than available through the small poems and brings life, death, and closure to Livingstone across the span of 4 pages. Lines like "When people asked him how the dogs were coming along, he said fine; it was all a secret system and he didn't want anyone looking in. He said he liked to get a piece of work finished before he showed it to people" help to progress John's story and to develop Livingstone's character (61). Although the prose works like a story, it broadcasts lines like "It was like breeding roses" in juxtaposition to the mad dog-breeding--this incorporates the poetic method of specifying Livingstone to the reader. For reasons such as that, I believe that the prose poems in CWBK don't necessarily work like pieces of fiction...they don't pick up where the last one left off and they link themselves to ideas that appear in the shorter poems. I had no difficulty reading them in succession to the shorter poems, but I do feel that they present Billy as a more guarded individual.
I viewed the pictures in the novel similarly to the way Virginia Woolf uses photos in Orlando (I'll bring a copy to class). Orlando is a biography of a fictional character and the transparent narrator is Orlando's biographer. Interspersed throughout the novel are photos of Orlando and his/her (he magically transforms into a woman halfway through the novel, making its biographical genre obviously fictional) friends. However, these photos are not really of the novel's characters, as made obvious through the appended notes. In CWBK, I could not help but to read the photos in the same manner...are these photos really of BTK and his friends? Why did Ondaatje pick those photos, real or not? This question riled me up to ask another question: IS THIS COLLECTION EVEN BIOGRAPHICAL IN NATURE AT ALL? I know that Ondaatje uses BTK's character to create a narrative sequence and shows us varied aspects of BTK, but does he fabricate occurences? He would have to. And I don't mind that at all--hearing BTK talk about sex in such a stereotypically/typically non-Western/rural/badass type of way is very gratifying.
I definitely see a different style of writing between the poems and the works of fiction (or prose poems). The poems appear mostly through Billy's voice and I feel that they work almost like he's telling secrets through them. Interestingly, (perhaps this is a bias I hold against the rural badass character whom I'm assuming didn't study poetry) the poems are written very beautifully and provide me with insights into how Billy felt during his experiences. For example, on page 16, Billy's character says "[...] later my hands cracked in love juice / fingers paralysed by it arthritic / these beautiful fingers I couldn't move / faster than a crippled witch now" (lines 18-21). Realistically, this scene makes sense for a rough-and-tumble guy like Billy to have a sexual encounter and feel romantically toward a woman, but regarding the actual diction, descriptions like "arthritic" "beautiful fingers" that move as slow as a "crippled witch" really create a sensitive and vulnerable character. I think that Ondaatje uses the shorter poems to show the speaker a vulnerable, safer Billy, unlike the Billy we see in his prose or fiction; the conniving, story-telling Billy.
One of my favorite passages of prose in the collection starts on page 59. Billy is speaking and relays to us a story originally told by John Chisum: Livingstone, whom he had sung with, turned out to be a mad dog-breeder. This section of prose has a stronger narration than available through the small poems and brings life, death, and closure to Livingstone across the span of 4 pages. Lines like "When people asked him how the dogs were coming along, he said fine; it was all a secret system and he didn't want anyone looking in. He said he liked to get a piece of work finished before he showed it to people" help to progress John's story and to develop Livingstone's character (61). Although the prose works like a story, it broadcasts lines like "It was like breeding roses" in juxtaposition to the mad dog-breeding--this incorporates the poetic method of specifying Livingstone to the reader. For reasons such as that, I believe that the prose poems in CWBK don't necessarily work like pieces of fiction...they don't pick up where the last one left off and they link themselves to ideas that appear in the shorter poems. I had no difficulty reading them in succession to the shorter poems, but I do feel that they present Billy as a more guarded individual.
I viewed the pictures in the novel similarly to the way Virginia Woolf uses photos in Orlando (I'll bring a copy to class). Orlando is a biography of a fictional character and the transparent narrator is Orlando's biographer. Interspersed throughout the novel are photos of Orlando and his/her (he magically transforms into a woman halfway through the novel, making its biographical genre obviously fictional) friends. However, these photos are not really of the novel's characters, as made obvious through the appended notes. In CWBK, I could not help but to read the photos in the same manner...are these photos really of BTK and his friends? Why did Ondaatje pick those photos, real or not? This question riled me up to ask another question: IS THIS COLLECTION EVEN BIOGRAPHICAL IN NATURE AT ALL? I know that Ondaatje uses BTK's character to create a narrative sequence and shows us varied aspects of BTK, but does he fabricate occurences? He would have to. And I don't mind that at all--hearing BTK talk about sex in such a stereotypically/typically non-Western/rural/badass type of way is very gratifying.
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