an intrepid journey of the hero through a series of hells

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	• Papillon Charriere Pocket, 1983 average customer review:based on 82 reviews
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highly recommended

Was Charriere only a good story teller?

After reading the book, I almost fancy committing a crime with the hope of a prison sentence and the chance of escape! This is an excellent read! I have traveled in Guyana and around the southern Caribbean to some extent and the sea is very rough. He must have been some sailor!

Guyana is such an amazing and beautiful country, sadly remembered for the horrifying stories of "the bagne", its tropical deadly diseases, its giant ants and migales, its poisonous snakes, frogs and spiders, etc. During colonial times and later, the living conditions were indeed so difficult that diseases, i.e. dysentery and typhoid fever, would spread by the day or hour, mainly due to the lack of hygiene and the lack of access to medical facilities,. Malaria and yellow fever also caused more deaths among inmates than the internment horrendous conditions and other atrocities. The name and reputation of Guyana has not yet completely recovered since that time. The "bagne" was officially closed down in 1943. I can only wonder how one would ever think of an escape from it. Guyana is in the middle on nowhere. North and South is just the plain, thick, green, giant rainforest. What about Rivers, cricks? Then, probably only an expert Wayana could paddle a canoe and maneuvers through the strong stream of the Maroni or the Oyapock muddy rivers.

I visited what remains of the internment camps in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, which gate stayed opened wide like a dead man's mouth, and the one in "Ile Saint-Joseph": a few compounds without doors or roofs still stand, black walls falling in decrepitude, zinc and iron bars rusted by the rain and the humidity... Surely, much of the tales of Charriere are pure fiction. Anybody (except of course the native Amerindians) will get lost and die just trying to find his or her way through the maze and thickness of the rainforest, and escaping through the sea doesn't looks such a better idea either. It is said that the sea, which is blue at the "Iles du Salut", is full of sharks who regularly swim about and around the islands to prey for sea turtles. Plus, there are at least 15 miles between the islands and the coast...

In fact, Charriere's publisher, Robert Laffont, revealed in an interview before he died that Charriere submitted the book to him as a novel. However, Laffont, who had a true-life series of books on the go, persuaded him to present it as a true story. He also said that Charriere combined the experiences of several convicts (and we can only speculate how much they exaggerated their exploits)into his book.

Indeed, it is highly likely that the book was ghost-written anyway. Yet, you should still read it.

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an intrepid journey of the hero through a series of hells

A petty thief wrongfully convicted of murder by a French court in 1931. The bulk of this narrative, and it is a tremendous one, is this man's incarcerations in penal colonies in French Guyana: the many escape scenarios and attempts; the final escape to the mainland; and 2 years living with the local Indians.

Charriere's writing style is spontaneous, lucid, and totally without pretense; real storytelling prowess. The storylines are inbued with perserverance, grit, and undercurrents of humor. He never surrenders to despair; his sense of intrepid survival and courage sustain him throughout the 13 years of his imprisonments. The will to live is the engine that drives these riveting episodes.

The question of the authenticity of this narrative, like the Castaneda books, arises; but ultimately, it doesn't matter if this story is true or not. This is an adventure story; and hyperbole is always involved in the narration of any adventure, regardless of degree. It is the power of the storyteller that mesmerizes the listener/reader in this, a hero's journey. In this case, it is a journey of liberation from a series of hells.

After reading this book, you will come away feeling enriched by this man's intrepid spirit. Highly recommended.

Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts

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VERY overdue for an updated translation

No, there's no need whatsoever for some poor sod to re-translate the whole book! It still reads beautifully. But, and this is a BIG but, the translation is, today, WAY TOO TAME. The quaint, oblique, charming English expletives he employs now badly interfere with the book's mood and thrillingly immediate, rough flavour. He translated this book way back in 1969; even the English aren't so delicate any longer. Please, isn't it time to honour Charriere's original manuscript, and dirty things up a bit??!

The Indomitable

One of the great adventure books of any time; certainly had had huge impact on my childhood as it was more mesmerizing and novel and gripping than any of the more conventional classics. There it was: a documentary that once again proved that the human spirit at its highest truly becomes indomitable and cannot be destroyed.
The writer erected the monument to the spirit that went unbroken even in the harshest brutality of the Guyana's tropical gulag.

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An Irresistible Adventure, An Escape from Devil's Island

Charriere's book was impossible to put down. Whether novel or real, his story as a prisoner is unforgettable. Highly recommended.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Henri Charriere was a Frenchman who was convicted in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment, he spent 12 years in the penal colony of French Guiana. After eight unsuccessful attempts to escape, he finally got away to Venezuela. More than 20 years later, when he was 60, Charriere wrote this story. Told in a spontaneous, straightforward style, PAPILLON became an international best seller and was made into a popular motion picture.

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