About this title: Condemned for a murder he had not committed, Henri Charriere (nicknamed Papillon) was sent to the penal colony of French Guiana. Forty-t wo days after his arrival he made his first break, travelling a thousand gruelling miles in an open boat. Recaptured, he suffered a solitary confinement and was sent eventually to Devil's Island, a hell-hole of disease and brutality. No one had ever escaped from this notorious prison - no one until Papillon took to the shark infested sea supported only by a makeshift coconut-sack raft. In 13 years he made nine daring escapes, living through many fantastic ...
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Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Morrow, New York
Date published: 1970
Description: Good in very good dust jacket. Stains visible, tanning, no marks, slight crease on back, price sticker on front, very good and useable book. Text in English, French. xi, 434 p. map. 25 cm. Includes Maps. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Pocket Books
Date published: 1971
Description: Good. Spine has been reglued, small amount of wear on the cover, previous owner's name written on front inside cover. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 500 grams. Inventory No: 000470. read more
Description: Fair. Cover scuffed and slightly dirty, upper and lower spine nicked, small tear toward top of spine, pages tanning but legible. read more
"After seeing the movie "Papillon" (Steve McQueen, awesome), I wanted to read the book. It was OK, but not as compelling as I had expected. Plus, as it turns out, though the book was billed as autobiographical, it probably wasn't. At best, it may have been a loosely realistic account of events experienced by a number of prisoners with whom the author associated while in French prisons.
It covers a fourteen-year period in Papillon's life dating from when he was wrongly convicted of murder. His punishment was life at hard labor at the notorious Devil's Island penal colony, but he was also imprisoned (and attempted escapes) at numerous locations. At least one of his escape attempts was temporarily successful, but his desire for revenge against the authorities led him back into their hands. Punishment for his escape attempts was often solitary confinement for years at a time.
After his final escape from devil's Island, Papillon was ultimately released, obtained Venezuelan citizenship, and thereafter, fame for his escapes.
Charrière originally submitted his manuscript to the publisher as a novel, and the publisher persuaded him to call it an autobiography. I probably wouldn't have read it had I known that at the time...my interest was in true accounts of escapes. Nevertheless, the descriptions of the various escape attempts, of the horrendous conditions under which the prisoners lived, and of the indomitable spirit of the man to be free again made it a reasonably good read."
"I didn't know anything about this book before starting, but after I finished, I looked at some other reviews and found out that it created a lot of controversy when it came out. The controversy came from the fact that there is no possible way that all of this is true. Part of me thinks that that doesn't really take away from the story, and part of me feels cheated. Total replay of Million Little Pieces.
The story is that Henri Charriere was in all these prisons, escaped from all of them, did his thing, got free, and then years later realized that he could write about his experiences and make some dough. Apparently he fit in other people's stories and just pure made some stuff up too.
Ah well.
It was a pretty quick, pretty fun read. It was written in a very "confessional" manner. I never really liked Papillon or believed that he was innocent or that he "deserved" to escape, but I did think that he was resourceful and smart. It was fun to try to guess how he was going to get out of different situations.
My husband said that this is supposed to be a pretty good movie, so I'm going to try to watch it this weekend. We'll see!"
"This book is an amazing testament to the power of the human spirit. Wow, how cheesy does that sound? Basically, this frenchman who they called Papillon was wrongly imprisoned in a horrible prison system in 1930's France. He attempted many escapes, built amazing friendships, and endured terrible hardships. An interesting thing about this book is that he is not a trained writer, so the book reads very much "train of thought." I have read it at least 4 times now."
"This is the type of book that is hard to rate, review, and discuss. The story of this man's experience bouncing from one hellish prison to another during the 1930s-40s is completely horrific and hopeful at the same time. It's hard to imagine the conditions and people he experienced, but it's all there in this memoir. He is very candid about the "lifestyle" of prisoners and all that comes with being sentenced to "hard labor" for life on a penal colony. The candidness is often raw and difficult to read so I found myself reading it like fiction more than once; however, the reality is this is nonfiction and he lived to tell the tale. Despite the horrors, there was always some goodness in a fellow inmate, a warden, a family who took in an escaped con on the run. I recommend it with caution. Again, agonizing, fascinating and always hopeful."
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