رواية قائمة على أحداث حقيقية في حياة الكاتب هنري شاريير
شاريير المتهم البرئ المحكوم بالمؤبد ورحلة هروب بائسة استغرقت 13 سنة
هروب من الظلم والقسوة والعنف والألم وصولا إلى الخلاص والحرية
تجربة انسانية مريرة مع إصرار على النجاة والتحرر والأمل في العيش بسلام

مگر من از وطنم چه می‌خواستم
غیر از تکه‌ای نان، گوشه‌ای امن، جیبی با حرمت، بارانی از عشق و پنجره‌ای باز كه آزادی و عشق را به من دهد، چه می‌خواستم در این حد، كه به من نداد؟
برای همین، نیمه شبی، دری را شکستم و رفتم. برای همیشه رفتم - شیرکو بی‌کس

فیلم پاپیون رو سال‌ها پیش دیدم. با وجود سن کم آنقدر مفتون داستان فیلم، بازی استیو مک‌کوئین و n  موسیقی متنn شدم که هرچند سال یکبار دوباره به تماشای فیلم نشستم، تا این اواخر، که فرصت مطالعه کتاب پیش اومد. اول شک داشتم که کتاب رو بخونم یا نه و آیا حرف جدیدی بجز چیزهایی که در فیلم دیدم داره یا نه. اما کتاب رو خوندم و حسابی هم ازش لذت بردم. برای من جای تعجب داره کسی از هم‌سن و سال‌های خودم این فیلم رو ندیده باشه. در مجموع اگر کسی فیلم رو هنوز بعد از این‌همه سال ندیده (محصول 1973، 45 سال پیش)، دیدنیش رو بذاره در اولویت

درباره‌ی کتاب - حاوی اسپویلر

شخصیت اصلی داستان کسی نیست جز هنری شاریر، نویسنده‌ی کتاب. او در واقع خود را در بطن داستان قرار داده است و کتاب یک اتوبیوگرافی ساختگی‌ست. داستان کتاب از آخرین جلسه‌ی دادرسی هنری، متهم به قتل عمد آغاز می‌شود. هنری در دادگاه فرمایشی و با شهادت ساختگی به حبس ابد به همراه اعمال شاقه محکوم می‌شود. اما او انسانی نیست که به این سادگی در جاده‌ی تباهی گام بردارد. او خواهان آزادی است و تا به آخرین نفس هم برای بدست آوردن آن تلاش می‌کند. در طول داستان و ماجراهای گوناگونی که پاپیون در طی فرارهای 9گانه‌اش پشت سرمی‌گذارد، با کاراکترهای گوناگونی که به قول نویسنده مرد فرار هستند روبرو می‌شویم، اما پاپیون از دو جهت با همگی آن‌ها متفاوت است: اول آنکه او هیچ گناهی مرتکب نشده است، مگر ناچیز شمردن فرصت آزاد زیستن. ماجرای قتل و شهادت دادگاه تماما ساختگی بوده. دوم اینکه او به معنای تمام خواهان آزادی است. او آزادی را در هر دو جنبه‌اش می‌خواهد. آزادی سلبی و آزادی ایجابی. او نه تنها می‌خواهد از زندان اعمال شاقه مستعمرات آزاد شود، بلکه می‌داند هدف این آزادی چه خواهد بود: زیستن و شرافتمندانه زیستن. شاید دلیل آنکه او هرگز تسلیم نمی‌شود و شرافت خود را با قتل و غارت بی‌دلیل، در مواقعی که فرصتش را دارد تباه نمی‌کند. در واقع او نه قاضی و هئیت منصفه نتوانستند او را تباه کنند. جاده‌ی تباهی بعد از سیزده سال سال هیچ اثری روی او نگذاشت، زیرا پاپیون به این جاده تعلق نداشت و در نهایت هم به چیزی که لیاقتش را داشت رسید

پاپیون طی آخرین فرار می‌دانست که این فرار - موفق یا ناموفق - آخرین فرار او خواهد بود. یا موفق شده و به آزادی می‌رسد و یا دستگیر می‌شود و با گیوتین اعدامش می‌کنند. او بر خلاف دیگر زندانیان در دوراهی زندگی با خفت یا آزادی با هر قیمت دست به انتخاب زد و خواهان بدست آوردن آزادی شد، حتی به قیمت جانش. حتی اگر کوسه‌ها او را زنده زنده در آب بدرند باز هم ارزشش را داشته، او با دست آزاد و در راه آزادی مرده. یک مرگ شرافتمندانه

پاپیون به همراه دوست زندانی‌اش سیلون برای آخرین بار تن به آب می‌زند. سیلون در چند قدمی آزادی در باتلاق غرق می‌شود و پاپیون آزادی‌اش را بدست می‌آورد و چنین سرانجامی چقدر شبیه پایان فیلم/کتاب پرواز بر فراز آشیانه‌ی فاخته بود و سرانجام مک مورفی و مرد سرخپوست : یکی پرید رو به خاوران ، یکی پرید رو به باختر، یکی به روی آشیون فاخته کشید پر

نکته‌ی دیگری که در داستان چشم‌نواز بود، به تصویر کشیدن این موضوع است که "هیچ انسانی برای همیشه از دست نمی‌رود و انسان می‌تواند فارغ از گذشته‌اش، دست به ساختن دنیایی جدید زند". زندگی شرافتمندانه‌ی دوستانِ هم‌بند پاپیون که در گذشته تبهکارانی خونریز بوده‌اند پس از آزادی در ونزوئلا تجسم این مضمون داستان است؛ هرچند این مضمون بیش از حد آرمانی و شعارگونه به نظر می‌رسد

در مجموع، داستان کتاب را بی‌اندازه دوست داشتم، بجز حال و هوای نوستالژیکی که برایم به ارمغان داشت، دلگرم کننده بود و رهایی بخش، بخصوص آنکه کتاب را در شرایط آزاردهنده‌ای خواندم و چقدر هم این خواندن، این همراه شدن با پاپیون در میان جنگل‌ها و رودخانه‌ها و دریاها، در میان قبیله‌ی بومیان، در زندان ونزوئلا شیرین بود. پاپیون در نهایت آزاد شد، من اما در کجای این راه وانهاده شدم؟

با من بگو
چگونه
شط غنای مضطربم را
سالم عبور دهم
تا تو
با ازدحام این‌همه شن‌زار و شوره‌زار، ای دریا

پی‌نوشت: مقایسه‌ای میان فیلم‌نامه و داستان اصلی

کلیت داستان اصلی و فیلم‌نامه یک چیز است، اما در جزئیات تفاوت‌های زیادی به چشم می‌خورد. نخست آنکه فیلم حذفیات بسیاری دارد، مثلا ماجرای جزیره‌ی جذامی‌ها در نسخه‌ی اصلاح شده‌ی فیلم موجود نیست و یا سرانجام دگا. در داستان دگا در هیچ فراری همراه پاپیون نشد و به همین دلیل قرار بود به زودی بخاطر حسن رفتار مشمول عفو شده و آزاد گردد. در صورتی که در فیلم دگا با پاپیون همراه شده و به همین جهت محکومیت چند ساله‌اش تبدیل به حبس ابد در جزیره‌ی شیطان می‌شود. اما اصلی‌ترین مغایرت فیلم و داستان در بخش پایانی کتاب است. فیلم با فرار پاپیون از جزیره به پایان می‌رسد، در حالی که داستان اصلی پس از این حدود 100 صفحه دیگر ادامه پیدا می‌کند. ماجرای پاپیون در اردوگاه چینی‌ها، فرار به گویان انگلیس و از آنجا به ونزوئلا و الخ جزو حذفیات پایانی فیلم است

After having watched the film adaptation starring Steve MCqueen and Dustin Hoffman, I knew that someday I had to read the book too!!!
And very happy to have done so...

The book or novel differs somewhat from the movie...
A great reading experience, emotionallly heavily laden, with the power of freshness and truth behind it!

Highly recommendable!!!

Dean;)

One can only presume Henri Charriere (Papillon, or simply Papi to inmates) was a cat in a previous life, and was still blessed with nine lives in this, believe me he needed all of them. Nine death-defying escapes from the brutal penal settlements of French Guiana in eleven years, pushing his stubborn body to the brink each time, wow!, now that's quite something, how it was even possible for a man of flesh and bone not to die a hundred deaths whilst also going round the bend is beyond me. He would not accept a life's incarceration for a crime he didn't commit, no way, after being wrongly convicted of murder in Paris 1931, and sent to the infamously named Devils Island. The man who had a beautiful butterfly tattoo on his chest, against all odds beat a system dreaded from the days of Napoleon who used its harsh and near inhospitable conditions to punish renegades and political prisoners. Well, this prisoner was simply having none of it!

This was a big book in length, and it felt like it to, through a ravaging chain of events Papillon reads both as an adventure story of high thrills and tension and a savage graphic account of the misery and inhumanity of the French penal system. Right from the start there is no settling in period, and you’re left in no doubt as to how hard you needed to be to survive. Charriere grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags you all the way on this incredible journey, leaving you just as exhausted as he. The emotions are explicit, the story is resolute and pumped full of testosterone, and the lessons from his life are succinct. He made his first break from the prison of Saint Laurent within the first forty-two days of his term navigating the heat, humidity and shark infested waters of the Caribbean Sea. Showing exemplary courage and will power he reached as far as Colombia using a rickety and an old crumbling wooden boat only to be captured and returned back to the French, this totally pissed them off. Angered and embarrassed French officials shipped him to the devil’s islands without delay. The failure only made him more resilient; he simply refused to accept his fate, eventually ending up in Venezuela, doing a little jail time, before, with the sun on his back he's a free man.

The book also explores the humane relations Papillon shared with his cell mates, and you feel for a lot of them to, he was heavy handed with the sods but easy to make friends with. He learned to live with the rogues, the dreaded convicts who hacked at moment’s provocation but he never abandoned the meek and the suffering, whilst also getting along with guards and wardens. Most were never repulsed by his intense obsession to break out, believing his innocence and respecting his dream to live as a free man. It was this trust that enlivened his spirits and increased his strength to keep his sanity in the lowest ebbs of confinement, which generally were truly awful.

On finishing Papillon I put the book down feeling that, out there in the big wide world, anything is possible. This is a testament to the human spirit on a grandeur level, an adrenaline soaked, hard as nails unshakable will to live. As for his writing, he took to it like anything else, without ever imagining that he could fail, putting pen to paper, 5,000 words a day, and if events from 30 years before ended up feeling a little fictionalised, he still managed to get Papillon across to the reader in the most believable way. An experience never to be forgotten. 5/5

"Papillon" este cel mai captivant roman de aventură citit vreodată.
Autobiografie romanțată fiind, autorul ne spune că a fost condamnat la închisoare de către curtea cu juri. La începutul secolului XX, în Franța colonialista, oamenii făcuți vinovați de delicte grave, erau trimiși la ocnă în teritorii îndepărtate (Guyana franceză, în cazul de față, "un loc din care nimeni nu a ieșit vreodată viu"). El, autorul, ne mărturisește că, deși în tinerețe a fost un golan, a fost condamnat la închisoare pe nedrept, deoarece nu a săvârșit niciun delict (dar -repet- este AUTOBIOGRAFIE).
Ajuns în închisoare, primul lucru care-i încolțește în minte este evadarea. Toate inchisoarile de maximă siguranță fiind, se înțelege că planurile sale -deși absolut geniale- întâmpină greutăți și dau greș. Dacă reușește să evadeze din spitalul unei închisori (prefăcându-se că era bolnav), este înhățat în timp ce își construiește luntrea de evadare, în cimitir.
Apar, de asemenea, diferite personaje de diferite nații cu diferite caractere și diferite stiluri de viață.
Unul din miile de detalii ar fi acela conform căruia deținuții care primeau bani din exterior erau nevoiți să uzeze de diferite mijloace pentru a-i pune în siguranță. Papillon al nostru (da -uitasem să menționez- Papillon este porecla autorului) folosește o metodă destul de des întâlnită în a două jumătate a secolului XX: pune banii într-un tub de dimensiuni mici și și-l bagă în anus (deci nu mai are dimensiuni mici, ci considerabile :D).
Cred că elaborează vreo 15-20 de planuri de evadare, fiind transferat -din pricina eșuării lor- la diferite închisori mai aspre. A fost și la Recluziune (un fel de carceră a timpurilor moderne, numai că muuuuuuuuuult mai aspră) unde Papillon al nostru a stat în două rânduri (când spun că a stat, vorbesc în ani :) ).
Replici de genul "mă simt stânjenit să vorbesc despre asta..." în mijlocul confesiunii sale lăuntrice denotă faptul că, dacă a ascuns anumite detalii, nu le-a ascuns pe toate. Ba chiar, în tot eroismul său descris în roman, introduce pe alocuri fapte mai puțin "onorabile".
Dar uite că îi reușește un plan de evadare...
Ajunge în Venezuela unde este primit cu căldură (având în vedere relațiile politice din contextul respectiv și ostilitatea dintre marile imperii).
Cunoscând și Franța, coloniile franceze, dar și Venezuela (un popor sărac din punct de vedere material, dar bogat cu duhul), Henri Charriere ne povestește cum -prin prisma lui- popoarele așa-zis civilizate sunt net inferioare rudimentarismului: "Acești pescari aproape analfabeți din gloful Paria, la capătul lumii, pierduți în acel imens estuar al Orenocului, au un umanism filosofic care lipsește multora dintre compatrioții noștri. Prea mult progres mecanic, o viață agitată, o societate însuflețită de un singur ideal: noi invenții, o viață tot mai lesnicioasă și mai îndestulată. Tot savurând descoperirile științifice așa cum lingi un șerbet, devii însetat de un confort tot mai desăvârșit și lupți fără încetare să-l obții. Toate acestea ucid sufletul, mila, înțelegerea, mărinimia."

Andrei Tamaş,
28 august 2015

My mother knew Papillon and another one of the characters in the book (Francoise). He was a customer of my uncle's restaurant Il Padrino, in Venezuela, back in the 60's,70's (after this story was told). My brother was just an infant/toddler at this time and they would take turns throwing him in the air, swinging him, etc.. I told this guy Neil about this and he was shocked that my family knew this guy. He had read the book and loved it so much. So as a gift, he gave me a copy of the book.

This book was written in my uncle's other restaurant Il Pappagallo back in the day. What a great story!!!

Papillon: this is a perfect novel to read during a Pandemic.

A petty thief in France wrongly convicted of murder, Henri Charrière is sent to a French Guiana penal colony to serve out a life sentence. His book is marketed as an autobiography, although journalists of the era found many false or fanciful parts. But it doesn’t matter. The man writes with a passion and a sense of storytelling beyond compare. He wrote his history on a whim, expecting to hand it off to an editor to be fixed or forgotten — that no one would read it or care.

He was wrong.

He became a sensation. The editor barely changed a word, and the world recognized in this swashbuckling renegade an epitome of what a man can become — free in mind and spirit, regardless of the effort to destroy him. Henri had an almost animal-like intensity. A brute of a man hardened by the prison system, he craved refinement and had a natural charm. While he professed indifference to what others thought of him, I imagine he was a proud and sensitive soul, hiding a damaged sense of self-worth and pride.

Maybe that is why he had embellished his tale — but what a tale it was.

Driven by rage against the prosecutor and judge who convicted him, he vowed to escape prison to return to France to exact his revenge. But this was 1930s France. Its brutal prison system deemed prisoners as almost inhuman. Beatings and deprivations were common. He was sentenced to serve on a penal island in South America, surrounded by tides and sharks, fronted by a mainland thick with wet jungle filled with quicksand, where escape meant either a quick death or a slow one. When Henri spied the land to become his home for over the next decade, his legs quaked. Yet, wanting revenge, he steeled himself to establish his dominance, or at least, to prevent others from dominating him. When he entered the billeted prison, a longhouse filled by cons, he was greeted by cheers from a few of his criminal friends who had entered the system before him. Henri was no saint. He was a self-declared thief and a criminal. And while other men succumbed to their vices and immersed themselves in the excesses of this kind of life, he would not. Innocent of the charges, he vowed to escape and punish the men who all but hanged him.

And so he did. Attempt after attempt, all to get back at those who sent him here. Each time, he was caught and forced to return to prison and then eventually to solitary confinement. In the 1930s, solitary was an extra special hell designed to destroy a man’s will. The rules were this: no talking at any time, day or night, but for two minutes every few weeks, a doctor would carelessly check your declining health, and one could speak but a word or two. Thin gruel the only food passed through slots in a door to minimize your human contact. Living in open roof cages with iron bars, with upper deck gangways for guards to watch the prisoners below like animals in a cage, the trapped men could only look up, silently, and feel cowed.

The silence was overwhelming, no words, no sounds, no shouts, no laughter. Henri was forced to spend every moment of the day in a cell three paces wide. And so he did, long days with no contact with another human soul except the drudging flap of a guard’s feet on the platform above. If he broke the silence, he was punished by a beating, or even worse, more time in solitary. No one survived these conditions beyond five years. Some would perish; most would go mad. So he paced his cage back and forth for hours every day until absolutely spent, he would lay down on his cot and close his eyes. But he would not sleep. He would use his exhaustion to relive his youth, his time in Paris, his time outside these walls, allowing him to laugh, love, fight, and feel again. He would recall or imagine real or fanciful moments: when he was adopted by a South American Indian tribe, living in the traditional ways and pearl diving in the sea, or spending time with his love, Nenette, a hooker in Paris, or holding the till of an open sailing boat drifting to Trinidad on one of his most daring escapes. Moments like these became more vibrant than dreams. More real than life itself, he could escape his prison, his life, his hate and soar free.

Recalling this book from memory while resting in my chair at home, my tiredness of course does not compare, my freedom unrestricted except by choice of either going outside into the cold or into a warm, soft bed. Yet, with this pandemic, we are forced to spend at least part of our lives in semi-isolation, and I think we can all relate a little more to what this man experienced. Henri Charrière had made an impression on me. His novel made me realize that a storyteller can sweep you off your feet and drop you into a fanciful world beyond compare. It does not matter whether the storyteller is embellishing his tale or not. It is the story that is the key. And Henri told a magnificent tale.

Check it out.

Never give up the fight, and that even when there seems no way out the way of the warrior, win or lose, is the correct way.
Books are such a wonderful thing that it teaches you all and me being very curious, we have become best friends now.
This was one of the best autobiographies I have ever read. The determination of papillon is beyond explanation. The tattoo on his chest of a papillon really meant something, he was never meant to be caged. An awesome journey, many things to learn from and will always remember him when I feel down as how he never gave up. A great read!

Its my favorite book till date. One word for it - WOW..Its just amazing and the way the author has described the life of a man in the prisons is amazing. Its wonderful how he tells this man's story spanning so many years. I saw this movie as a kid..I must be very young then maybe class 5 or younger..and ever since then I had a desire in me to read this book whenever I get a chance.

Papillon means butterfly and it symbolises the protagonists' desire to get free from the clutches of jail. The vivid description is just too good to miss and the book too good to be put down.

I also like it because I am great fan of escape stories, prison accounts, prisoner of war and other war stories.

Why I chose to listen to this audiobook:
I read this book back when I was in high school during the late 1970s. As a young, impressionable reader, I had given it 5 stars. A few years ago, my daughter and her husband gifted me with a copy of this book after they watched (and liked) the 2017 movie version. I found an audiobook recording to follow along with the book.

Praises:
1. a memoir written by Henri Charrière, focusing on his unjust incarceration at a penal colony in French Guyana during the early 1930s. It's an action-packed adventure story of perseverance and survival as he attempts several escapes from various prisons; and,
2. the hardcopy contains a Glossary of various French terms used, as well as a map outlining a couple of Papillon's lengthier escapes.

Niggles:
1. although written as a memoir at least 40 years after this time period, Charriere is extremely detailed in his conversations, which is amazing, because I can't recall what I said word-for-word with anyone that I spoke to a couple of hours ago. Personally, I felt there was TOO MUCH DIALOGUE which got boring at times;
2. there was a lot of tell, not show, and a lot of repetition;
3. I was mystified as to how often Papillon was welcomed and adored wherever he went, given free rein, gifts, and money. He was revered as the center of attention by prison wardens and indigenous peoples alike, even though everyone was highly aware that he was an escaped prisoner convicted of murder;
4. the audiobook recording was confusing as there were huge amounts of dead air between "notebooks"; and,
5. I was totally disgusted when he is welcomed into a Colombian indigenous tribe during his first escape, "inherits" two young wives, 17-year-old Lali and her 12-year-old sister, Zoraima, impregnates them both, and then leaves them high and dry in order to continue his adventure.

Overall Thoughts:
Well, this is the second book in a row that I loved in my youth, only to be highly disillusioned with in my 60s as I reread them. I often questioned the overall authenticity of this "memoir", and it appears that I'm not the only one. Many parts just seemed so wrong.
This is just proof that books sometimes affect us differently throughout the years.

I don't care if this book wasn't a 100% factual, honest-to-God documentary account of what actually happened to this guy - it was a magnificent adventure novel, full of blood and drama and action. From what I can tell, Charrière cobbled the narrative out of his own experiences as a prisoner in the pitiless camps of 1930s French Guyana, plus the stories of a few camp-mates, plus his own dramatic license, emerging with a masterpiece. There were many moments where the story is less than totally plausible (if you created a drinking game where you took a shot each time a beautiful woman befriended him out of the blue, or people started doing favors for him for no reason, or an important official preposterously took him into their trust, you would be dead drunk inside of three chapters), and yet Charrière crafted a completely absorbing tropical world of hardened criminals, miserable wretches, forbidding prisons, thrilling escapes, and all-around awesome displays of survival.

I think my favorite part, out of a lot of great parts, was Papillon's moment of agonizing choice about a third of the way in, between staying in his beautiful Venezuelan paradise with his two new-found native wives, and returning to seek "vengeance" on what he thinks is the unjust society that shipped him halfway across the world to rot in a jungle charnel house. He idiotically chooses to leave this blissful native paradise, but even when I was cursing him for being a fool I thought his reflections on the differences between the "civilized" European culture who'd condemned him and the indigenous cultures who'd adopted him were well-written and interesting in the light of the complicated relationship Western countries have had with their colonies. The French, while not exactly angels, were often more willing than their neighbors the Spanish and the British to go native and peacefully blend into the various cultures who inhabited their colonies.

While I think he overdid the Noble Savage trope a little bit, in terms of the story it makes the protagonist the perfect lone wolf badass who's as at home charming the well-to-do wives of the colonial administrators as he is getting laid with the daughters of whatever tribal chieftains he runs into. Another one of my favorite parts was his first experience in solitary at Devil's Island - I've read other books with prison scenes in them, but his description of the soul-crushing loneliness it engenders is one of the best, and was surely the prototype for countless others. And of course all his various escape attempts are amazing too, but every part of the book can't be your favorite, that's like having dessert for every meal, something only a child would do. This book hit me squarely on that kind of undiluted childish pleasure level. I wish I'd read it when I was twelve, it would have been the perfect companion to The Count of Monte Cristo and Robinson Crusoe. Now to go track down the movie!

پاپیون روایت حقیقی و هنرمندانه زندان و آزادی ست که به سبکی منحصر به فرد نوشته شده،در صفحات پاپیون همراه می شویم با انسان هایی که برای فرار از اسارتی مرگبار می‌کوشند..آزادی ای که بار ها به شکست می انجامد و سیزیف وار بار دیگر خود را در چنگال میله ها و دیوار ها می یابند..




"اکنون که آزادی خود را بازیافته ایم،بر روی این دریای بیکران،سفر بزرگ خویش را آغاز کرده ایم..."
در جهان امروز در اسارت به سر میبریم، اسارتی که زندانبان متعهد و وظیفه شناسی دارد..خودمان‌‌...ما اسیر زنجیر افکار و ذهن خود ایم..افسوس که گسستن از این همه که ساخته ماست آسان نیست..تغییر آسان نیست،همچنان که نمیتوان روح پرنده ای که در قفس زیسته آزاد نمود ما نیز از خود رهایی نداریم..به روز های طلایی ای می اندیشم که در ذهن خود زندگی کردن آن ها را میخواهم..چه دور اند..میگویند که اینده نیامده ست و گذشته از دست رفته و تنها زمان اکنون را در دست داری..اری زمان را در دست دارم،اما افسوس که دیگر خود در دسترس نیستم.