"Live, live, live. Each time I was tempted to despair, I would repeat three times: 'As long as there's life, there's hope'. "

It is 1931, and 25-year-old Henri ‘Papillon’ Charrière is convicted of murder. His sentence: life imprisonment in the infamous penal colonies of French Guiana. Papillon is innocent of the crime for which he has been condemned and he leaves France with a burning desire to escape and revenge himself upon those responsible for this miscarriage of justice.

The novel is semi-fictional, with even the author later admitting the autobiographical narrative to be ‘only 75% true’. The book certainly stretches the truth at times but there's also a brutal honesty about the narrative. Papillon is certainly no angel and however much he embellished the details, Charrière certainly did experience the inhuman conditions of the penal colonies and made a successful break for freedom which took some fourteen years to achieve. You have to admire his tenacity if nothing else.

"As I saw how the past faded away, growing less important in comparison with everyday life, it seemed to me that once you got to the penal settlement you must almost forget what you have been, how or why you had landed up there, and concentrate upon one thing alone – escape. I was wrong, because the most important and most engrossing thing is above all to keep yourself alive."

Unfortunately whilst the bones of an incredible story are there some wild flights of fantasy seriously undermines the readers' credulity at times. Some of the author’s purported adventures and escape attempts are likely to be based on stories Charrière heard from other prisoners, however, if the story is simply taken at face value, it's an inspirational struggle for freedom, human resilience and unlikely heroism. This is particularly true during the first half of the novel but the later chapters becomes less gripping and it begins to feel a little repetitive.

The book also contains a litany of casually racist, misogynistic and homophobic remarks which for today's readers will be difficult to overlook. Even if he was not an actual murderer, Charrière openly admits to having had sexual relations with a fifteen-year-old, a brief career as a pimp, and carried out a host of thefts, lies and acts of casual violence. Yet he clearly wants the reader to believe that he was essentially a good guy at heart, he is simply a by-product of a society that is at fault and that all criminals can turn themselves into model citizens if they are only given a chance. This is fanciful at best.

"No nation has the right to revenge itself or rush to eliminate people just because they cause society anxiety. They should be healed instead of given such inhuman punishment."

'Papillon' was a runaway success when it was published in 1969 and its easy to see why. If we are willing to but aside the fact that the book is supposedly auto-biographical and treat it as fiction it's a searing indictment of the pointless cruelty of lifelong incarceration and a rollocking boy's own adventure story.

Las memorias y libros autobiográficos a menudo ofrecen historias tan fantásticas que cuesta creer que ocurrieron en verdad. Las historias de fugas de la cárcel y de individuos de voluntad inquebrantable que se enfrentan al sistema siempre me atrajeron, y cuando uno combina eso con islas lejanas y exóticas, aventura y peligro constante, ¿Qué más se puede pedir?
Papillon-un delincuente francés que no era exactamente un santo, ni mucho menos (cuando estalla la Segunda Guerra Mundial, aclara de entrada que no tenía ningún aprecio por su país ni interés en pelear contra los alemanes, por ejemplo)-es condenado a cadena perpetua en la colonia de la Guayana Francesa, un lugar que Francia juzgó adecuado para sacarse de encima a sus peores criminales, así como Inglaterra eligió Australia un siglo atrás. Eso de enviar a los presos peligrosos muy pero muy lejos, y en particular a islas, parece ser una constante a lo largo de la historia.
Sabía que se hizo una película, que fue muy famosa, basada en este libro, pero no la he visto. La prosa, obviamente, no es la de un escritor profesional y eso se nota. Pero el autor lo compensa con 500 páginas trepidantes donde se narra su derrotero de un sitio a otro y sus constantes fugas e intentos de fuga. ¿Es 100% verídico? Dudoso, porque a diferencia de otros relatos, como "Viven", Papillon cuenta su historia en soledad y cubre más de una década. La tentación de añadir anécdotas sabrosas o pintarse a sí mismo mejor de lo que era en realidad debe haber sido muy fuerte. Pero ello no quita que sea un gran libro y una gran contribución al género de las fugas carcelarias y las aventuras.

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;)

I was blown away by this book ... by the strength of character displayed by the author (admittedly not always a character to be unreservedly liked), by the mad adventures he undertook, and by the amazing richness of a life that a court tried to throw into a hole and forget about.

There is something so fundamentally heartening about Papillon’s refusal to remain incarcerated for a crime he did not commit (though he ends his tale by admitting that he was a character ripe to be accused of it) that his escape attempts, his adventures, his successes and failures can only be followed with a mixture of – if not always approval – admiration and whole-hearted hope that things should end well for him. Despite some flaws of character and a style of writing that descends here and there into occasional egotistical self-approval, one cannot help agreeing with the friends of Papillon who declare him worthy of loyalty and every help in his escape attempts.

The brutal harshness of the French penal system, the incredible richness of life that he encounters on his breaks, the amazing friendships that he forges, the moments of genuine horror that he witnesses are described vividly and with a well-paced flair for narrative that isn’t lost with translation. Papillon may – like any person – have been capable of blunt actions and mistakes, but his credit lies in the fact that, in the face of such dismal prospect, he tried to remain a man who considered what was honourable while refusing to compromise his single-minded goal… to be free.

I have heard from a few sources a lot of what is in this book is not true or the author has borrowed tales from other people he knew while imprisoned. Frankly, I don't care, why let the truth spoil a good yarn?

Most of us at one point or another have wanted to escape something be it a job or a bad relationship for example. In the book, I found the author whether knowingly or not has tapped into that. Everything is a rat race and we just want freedom.

The beauty of this book's content for me is another level, the harmony of different cultures and races is magnificent, and moving, especially during this supposed enlightened age which paradoxically is so connected yet so divided.

I was disappointed with this one. I added it based on memory of the old 70's classic starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman and maybe for that reason my expectations were too high.

There were a couple of intense parts to the story, so I will at least give this a 2, but overall, the story ran on, seeming to repeat itself with similar encounters. The translation may be to blame, but I thought the writing was amateurish. Henri Charriere was writing about his own encounter in escaping the French prisons, several times, but his telling felt like someone exaggerating the facts and bragging about their exploits.

What I got out of this; yes, the conditions in this prison system were horrible, inhuman, but that doesn't excuse the fact that Papillon was a criminal and a murderer. Just because he managed multiple escapes, many by committing murder, does not make him a figure to be admired.

550 pages of prison escapes. Exciting, but wow, so many failed attempts. I figure if Papillon lived through 14 years of horror, the least I can do is read his 550 pages of escapes. He's certainly an example of "do not go gentle."

Bu kitabın insanı saran, gözleri bozana dek bırakmadan okuma hissi uyandıran atmosferinin yanı sıra; gerek olay akışının içine okuru hapsedişi, gerekse de yer yer karşımıza çıkan mizah anlayışıyla da romancılık açısından iyi bir kitap olduğunu gösteriyor bence.
İnsanın doğuştan iyi ve adaletli olduğu varsayımına inanan insanların güçlükle okuyacağı kitabın satır aralarında insançocuğunun gerçek yüzü; toplumda inşa edilen sözde adalet, küçük insanların küçük çıkar çatışmaları ve hesaplaşmaları da okunabilir.
Okumamın üzerinden geçen sekiz yıla rağmen bende hala güzel bir yeri olan, nadide bir kitap.

I had a hard time to believe a lot of the stuff in this memoir and was hardly surprised when I read that a lot of it was actually invented or had in reality happened not to Charrière but to his inmates.

Papillon was interesting as a narrative novel transmitting a message about the French punitive system back at that time, but even though Charrière could almost get philisophical at times, I personally couldn't get myself to like him at all and the plot was repetitive.
Charrière seemed rather full of himself and the moment he entered prison, he immediately got in contact with potential later break companions and planned out in his head who he would have to kill to get his revenge.
From there, everyone who disagreed with him in some way was evil and the rest of the world always seemed eager to help him escape. Too black and white for my taste.

You might very well enjoy this book as a work of fiction, but it was just not for me.

Although a bit tiring and super detailed at times, it was honestly amazing. Considering it was written by Charrière himself, who isn’t really a writer, it was surprisingly really good.

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!

Η αληθινή ιστορία της καταδίκης σε ισόβια στα νησιά της Γαλλικής Γουιάνας, του θρυλικού Πεταλούδα, γραμμένη από τον ίδιο. Ο Ενρί Σαριέρ είναι ένας λωποδύτης που ζει στο Παρίσι την δεκαετία του 1930. Δυστυχώς για αυτόν, συλλαμβάνεται και καταδικάζεται σε ισόβια για έναν φόνο που ο ίδιος ισχυρίζεται ότι ποτέ δεν διέπραξε. Η γαλλική δικαιοσύνη τον στέλνει σε ισόβια καταναγκαστικά έργα στα νησιά της γαλλικής Γουιάνας στην Καραιβική. Εκεί θα ζήσει εννέα ολόκληρα χρόνια ( τα τρία από αυτά σε φριχτές συνθήκες απομόνωσης). Θα κάνει εννέα απόπειρες απόδρασης, η τελευταία θα είναι και πετυχημένη. Θα ζητήσει άσυλο στην Βενεζουέλα και θα ζήσει εκεί 25 ολόκληρα χρόνια έως την παραγραφή του αδικήματός του. Μετά από προτροπή ενός Γάλλου εκδότη, θα καταγράψει σε 13 τετράδια την περιπέτεια της ζωής του. Το βιβλίο θα γίνει μεγάλη εμπορική επιτυχία και λίγα χρόνια αργότερα θα βασιστεί σε αυτό η καταπληκτική ταινία με τον Στηβ Μακ Κουήν και τον Ντάστιν Χόφμαν. Δυστυχώς για τον Ενρί Σαριέρ, θα πεθάνει μόλις μια εβδομάδα πριν την παγκόσμια προβολή της ταινίας.
Πολλοί ισχυρίστηκαν ότι όλες οι περιπέτειες που περιγράφει ο Πεταλούδας δεν είναι αληθινές αλλά προιόν μυθοπλασίας, η αλήθεια είναι ότι κάποιες από αυτές ακούγονται απίστευτες για να τις ζήσει όλες μαζί ένας και μόνο άνθρωπος. Πολύ πιθανόν ο Πεταλούδας να εμπνεύστηκε και από ιστορίες που έζησαν άλλοι συγκρατούμενοί του ή να υπερέβαλε λίγο για χάρη του βιβλίου. Πάντως έχουμε να κάνουμε με μια υπέροχη περιπέτεια που εξυμνεί την ζωή και την ελευθερία, και με ένα καταπληκτικό δείγμα απλής γραφής προφορικής λογοτεχνίας.