The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

Zusatztext “Moving and tragic. . . . Ondaatje is a poet and even his prose moves with rhythmic circular precision.” — The New York Times Book Review “ The Collected Works of Billy the Kid strains one’s powers of description.... Ondaatje’s eye for detail is wonderful and he uses it poetically! with superb restraint.”—Larry McMurtry! The Washington Post Book World “Wonderful.... Ondaatje’s language is clean and energetic! with the pop of bullets. This is literature! art.” —Annie Dillard Informationen zum Autor Michael Ondaatje is a novelist and poet who lives in Toronto, Canada. He is the author of The English Patient , Divisadero , In the Skin of a Lion , Coming Through Slaughter , The Collected Works of Billy the Kid and Anil's Ghost ; three collections of poems, The Cinnamon Peeler , Secular Love , and There's a Trick with a Knife I'm Learning to Do ; and a memoir, Running in the Family . He received the Booker Prize for The English Patient . Klappentext Drawing on contemporary accounts, period photographs, dime novels, and his own prodigious fund of empathy and imagination, Michael Ondaatje's visionary novel traces the legendary outlaw's passage across the blasted landscape of 1880 New Mexico and the collective unconscious of his country. The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth by a writer who brings us back to our familiar legends with a renewed sense of wonder.These are the killed.(By me)—Morton, Baker, early friends of mine.Joe Bernstein. 3 Indians.A blacksmith when I was twelve, with a knife.5 Indians in self defence (behind a very safe rock).One man who bit me during a robbery.Brady, Hindman, Beckwith, Joe Clark,Deputy Jim Carlyle, Deputy Sheriff J. W. Bell.And Bob Ollinger. A rabid cat,birds during practice,These are the killed.(By them)—Charlie, Tom O'FolliardAngela D's split arm,and Pat Garrettsliced off my head.Blood a necklace on me all my life.Christmas at Fort Sumner, 1880. There were five of us together then. Wilson, Dave Rudabaugh, Charlie Bowdre, Tom O'Folliard, and me. In November we celebrated my 21st birthday, mixing red dirt and alcohol—a public breathing throughout the night. The next day we were told that Pat Garrett had been made sheriff and had accepted it. We were bad for progress in New Mexico and cattle politicians like Chisum wanted the bad name out. They made Garrett sheriff and he sent me a letter saying move out or I will get you Billy. The government sent a Mr. Azariah F. Wild to help him out. Between November and December I killed Jim Carlyle over some mixup, he being a friend.Tom O'Folliard decided to go east then, said he would meet up with us in Sumner for Christmas. Goodbye goodbye. A few days before Christmas we were told that Garrett was in Sumner waiting for us all. Christmas night. Garrett, Mason, Wild, with four or five others. Tom O'Folliard rides into town, leaning his rifle between the horse's ears. He would shoot from the waist now which, with a rifle, was pretty good, and he was always accurate.Garrett had been waiting for us, playing poker with the others, guns on the floor beside them. Told that Tom was riding in alone, he went straight to the window and shot O'Folliard's horse dead. Tom collapsed with the horse still holding the gun and blew out Garrett's window. Garrett already halfway downstairs. Mr. Wild shot at Tom from the other side of the street, rather unnecessarily shooting the horse again. If Tom had used stirrups and didnt swing his legs so much he would probably have been locked under the animal. O'Folliard moved soon. When Garrett had got to ground level, only the horse was there in the open street, good and dead. He couldnt shout to ask Wild where O'Folliard was or he would've got busted. Wild started to yell to tell Garrett though and Tom killed him at once. Garrett fired at O'F...

Product details

• Authors: Michael Ondaatje
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.03.1996
• EAN: 9780679767862
• ISBN: 978-0-679-76786-2
• No. of pages: 128
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 10 mm
• Series: Vintage International; Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature