This book taught me the true meaning of resilience, courage and determination. Papillon is a truly admirable story.

Inspiring to the end. Amazing, and beautifully written/translated.

Dit boek is een aanrader als je van avonturen houdt. Het verhaal is heel ongekunsteld geschreven en dat werkt in dit geval in het voordeel. Je hoort de hoofdpersoon zelf zijn levensverhaal vertellen. Hier en daar schept hij wat op, zo af en toe verfraait hij wat hij doet, maar het is al met al een eerlijk verhaal van een leven vol ontberingen, vriendschap en doorzettingsvermogen.
Tijdloos!

Nunca había entendido la fascinación que tenia mi tío y mi mamá por este libro hasta que me decidí a leerlo... que puedo decir... acompañar a "Papillon" por este largo camino me ha dejado una perspectiva totalmente diferente, la fuerza de voluntad de este hombre por recuperar la libertad que le fue arrebatada injustamente es de admirar, sin importar cuantas veces tuvo que ver como la libertad huía de él siempre maquinaba alguna estrategia para su siguiente intento.

la narración es fluida y hace que te sientas parte de cada situación buena o mala y aunque no hay casi diálogos en el desarrollo es una lectura que se puede hacer rápida.

En conclusión una excelente historia que demuestra que no es fácil conseguir lo que tanto anhelas pero que si no desistes y perseveras siempre con el objetivo en mente consigues lo que quieres.

A solid, solid 5 stars.

Having seen and enjoyed the movie (Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman!), I picked up the book. The movie is gripping, heart-wrenching, and a wonderful, complete thought.

Compared to the book, it's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

That's how much I enjoyed this book. The movie leaves out about 5/6ths of Henri's story. He had 9 or 10 cavelas (escape attempts) in total from probably 7 different prisons. The book is an autobiography.

I cannot tell you much about the enjoyable parts of the book without giving away some pretty big spoilers, but let me say that the character McQueen plays wasn't half as determined, or half the genius of the actual man. There was also a lot that would not have made it past the censors, even during the freewheeling 70s, the last time American films were truly groundbreaking as a whole. In a world where Bad Lieutenant, Caligula and A Clockwork Orange were made, that's saying something. The honesty is brutal and mostly complete.

If you enjoyed the movie, pick up the book today. If you have never seen the movie, but appreciate hearing stories of real-world survival/triumph over impossible odds, pick it up (Unbroken is the first similar book that comes to mind).

Just be forewarned: there are moments of extreme beauty, and there are moments of extreme...everything else. It's a story of life inside a French penal colony in the 1930s, for chrissakes.

Definitely one of my new favorites! This book was like the real life version of the Count of Monte Cristo. Henri Chariere's auto-biography of his cavales from the French Prisons in Latin America were enthralling, and not a moment of this book was lost to drivel.

Considering how much this book features daring prison escapes and adventure, it’s wild that I was bored for the large, large majority of it.

I think my main grievance with it is that it feels like a report. All throughout, the writing style is very much “I did this, and then I did that. Then I did this. Then we did that. Then this. Then that. Then this. Then that.” It gets repetitive, and that makes what should be an exciting adventure into more just a drab summary of events.

I think with some editing, this could be a wildly interesting story. This guy has lived an absolutely wild life, and it’s got all the makings of such an adventure. However, it’s visible that he just wrote up what happened and shipped it off. It doesn’t really feel like South America comes to life, and the detached, report-like tone creates a lack of suspense. I didn’t feel like I was alongside him, truly feeling that he might not survive these spectacles, and wondering what he would do.

Speaking of Papillon’s actions, it’s amazing that over the course of the 10ish years that take place throughout the novel, he doesn’t make a single mistake. If everyone else is sick, he makes sure to point out that he’s not. If others lose something, not him! He’s just built different, I guess. But it does make me feel like he’s leaving things out that would make him seem weak or imperfect. Even when his attempted escapes don’t go to plan, it’s not a fault of his.

Okay, fine, it’s his version of events. But there’s very little else to focus on in the novel because he himself is always in the spotlight - to the extent that others around him being flat cardboard cutouts of a person. He has multiple companions over his many escapes, but I couldn’t offer up a single adjective describing even one of them. They’re just a name on the page who mindlessly follow Papillon. They exist to follow and support him. This strikes me as one of the least believable things about the book. He is describing real people who really existed, yet they have nothing presented here to demonstrate who they were. Either his focus is so self-centred that he can’t be bothered to spare some description of who they were, or he is re-writing them to make them into vapid followers. Regardless, the result is that he is Big Guy In Charge at all times, and it makes the relationships and friendships here feel hollow.

And that brings me back to the original issue I have. He could give more attention to specific moments and specific characters, really carving out page time for them to shine and come to life, but when he’s reporting every event equally, nothing stands out. Editing would have really helped to form this into standout moments, creating heights and depths in the story that felt like the adventure that he experienced.

I do respect his tenacity in all the attempted escapes, and he’s clearly an intelligent person, but I just wished to experience more in this story.

Edit: Updated from 2 stars to 1 star because I just found out that he was never actually interned on Devil's Island (one of the locations of the book), and that he worked as a nurse in one of the penal settlements (never mentioned in the book), and that many say large parts of this story are fabricated, as he inserts himself into the stories he heard from other prisoners. What a fucking douchebag. This book is a good exercise in not trusting the narrator, since he was more full of shit than I realized.