Papillon is a memoir by convicted felon and fugitive Henri Charrière, first published in France in 1969 which became an instant bestseller at the time. It was translated into English from the original French by June P. Wilson and Walter B. Michaels for a 1970 edition, and also by author Patrick O'Brian. Soon afterward the book was adapted for a Hollywood film.
A Little Of The Plot:
The book is a half-fictitious account of a fourteen-year period in Papillon's life (October 26, 1931 to October 18, 1945) from when he was wrongly convicted of murder in France and sentenced to a life of hard labour at the Devil's Island penal colony, to when he escaped from prison to ultimately settle in Venezuela, where he lived and prospered, free from French justice.
Papillon endured a brief stay at a prison in Caen. As soon as Papillon boarded the vessel bound for South America, he learned about the brutal life that prisoners must endure at the prison colony. Murders were not uncommon among convicts, and men were cut with makeshift knives for their charger (a hollow, metal cylinder containing money that is lodged in the rectum; it has also been called a plan). Papillon befriended a former banker convicted of counterfeiting named Louis Dega. He agreed to protect Dega from those seeking to murder him for his charger.
Arriving at the penal colony, Papillon immediately claimed to be ill and was sent to the infirmary. There he collaborated with two individuals named Clousiot and André Maturette to escape from the prison by a sailboat, which they acquired with the assistance of the penal settlement's leper colony at Pigeon Island. They let the current of the Maroni River take them to the Atlantic Ocean, after which they began to sail to the north-west.
In Trinidad the trio were joined by three other escapees and were helped on their journey by a British family, the Dutch bishop of Curaçao and several others. Nearing the Colombian coastline, the escapees were sighted; they could not escape for lack of wind, were captured and were then imprisoned. But this story just goes on, time and time again, I found that I could not put this book down. This is one hell of a read.
I read this book because I saw the film staring Steve McQueen. What really struck me was the fact that the film only covers half the book. Even if this is, as has been suggested, only a collection of tails from an assortment of convicts, it is still an amazing read. Some of it is quite horrifying. A tail of what human endurance can pull you through. What human will power enables you to do. If you are having a really bad year, read this and think again. He wrote this after reading the bestseller from Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank. This is much better.
Papillon
If you ever think you are having a bad life, read this and think again (18 March 2010).
