Papillon (book)
Papillon is an autobiographical novel written by Henri Charrière, first published in France on 30 April 1969. Papillon is Charrière's nickname. The novel details Papillon's incarceration and subsequent escape from the French penal colony of French Guiana, and covers a 14-year period between 1931 and 1945.
Synopsis
The book is an account of a 14-year period in Papillon's life, beginning when he was wrongly convicted of murder in France and sentenced to a life of hard labor at the Bagne de Cayenne, the penal colony of Cayenne in French Guiana known as Devil's Island. He eventually escaped from the colony and settled in Venezuela, where he lived and prospered.After a brief stay at a prison in Caen, Papillon was put aboard a vessel bound for South America, where he learned about the brutal life that prisoners endured at the prison colony. Violence and murders were common among the convicts. Men were attacked for many reasons, including money, which most kept in a charger. Papillon befriended Louis Dega, a former banker convicted of counterfeiting. He agreed to protect Dega from attackers trying to get his charger.
Upon arriving at the penal colony, Papillon claimed to be ill and was sent to the infirmary. There he collaborated with two men, Clousiot and André Maturette, to escape from the prison. They planned to use a sailboat acquired with the help of the associated leper colony at Pigeon Island. The Maroni River carried them to the Atlantic Ocean, and they sailed to the northwest, reaching Trinidad.
In Trinidad the trio were joined by three other escapees; they were aided by a British family, the Dutch bishop of Curaçao, and several others. Nearing the Colombian coastline, the escapees were sighted. The wind died and they were captured and imprisoned again.
In Colombian prison, Papillon joined with another prisoner to escape. Some distance from the prison, the two went their separate ways. Papillon entered the Guajira peninsula, a region dominated by Amerindians. He was assimilated into a coastal village whose specialty was pearl diving. There he married two teenage sisters and impregnated both. After spending several months in relative paradise, Papillon decided to seek vengeance against those who had wronged him.
Soon after leaving the village, Papillon was captured and imprisoned at Santa Marta, then transferred to Barranquilla. There, he was reunited with Clousiot and Maturette. Papillon made numerous escape attempts from this prison, all of which failed. He was eventually extradited to French Guiana.
As punishment, Papillon was sentenced to two years of solitary confinement on Île Saint-Joseph. Clousiot and Maturette were given the same sentence. Upon his release, Papillon was transferred to Royal Island. An escape attempt was foiled by an informant. Papillon had to endure another 19 months of solitary confinement. His original sentence of eight years was reduced after Papillon risked his life to save a girl caught in shark-infested waters.
After French Guiana officials decided to support the pro-Nazi Vichy Regime, the penalty for escape attempts was death, or capital punishment. Papillon decided to feign insanity in order to be sent to the asylum on Royal Island. Insane prisoners could not be sentenced to death for any reason, and the asylum was not as heavily guarded as Devil's Island. He collaborated on another escape attempt but it failed; the other prisoner drowned when their boat was destroyed against rocks. Papillon nearly died as well.
Papillon returned to the regular prisoner population on Royal Island after being "cured" of his mental illness. He asked to be transferred to Devil's Island, the smallest and considered the most "inescapable" island in the Îles de Salut group. Papillon studied the waters and discovered possibilities at a rocky inlet surrounded by a high cliff. He noticed that every seventh wave was large enough to carry a floating object far enough out into the sea that it would drift toward the mainland. He experimented by throwing sacks of coconuts into the inlet.
He found another prisoner to accompany him, a pirate named Sylvain. He had sailed in southeast Asia, where he was known to raid ships, killing everyone aboard for their money and goods. The two men jumped into the inlet, using sacks of coconuts for flotation. The seventh wave carried them out into the ocean. After days of drifting under the relentless sun, surviving on coconut pulp, they made landfall at the mainland. Sylvain sank in quicksand after having abandoned his coconut sack.
On the mainland, Papillon encountered Cuic Cuic, who had built a hut on an "island". The hut was set on solid ground surrounded by quicksand; Cuic Cuic depended on a pig to find the safe route over the quicksand. The men and the pig made their way to Georgetown, British Guiana, by boat. Papillon decided to continue to the northwest in the company of five other escapees. Reaching Venezuela, the men were captured and imprisoned at mobile detention camps in the vicinity of El Dorado, a small mining town near the Gran Sabana region. Surviving harsh conditions there, and finding diamonds, Papillon was eventually released. He gained Venezuelan citizenship and celebrity status a few years later.
The impact of ''Papillon''
The book was an immediate sensation and instant bestseller, achieving widespread fame and critical acclaim, and is considered a modern-day classic. Upon publication it spent 21 weeks as number 1 bestseller in France, with more than 1.5 million copies sold in France alone. 239 editions of the book have since been published worldwide, in 21 different languages.The book was first published in France by Robert Laffont in 1969, and first published in Great Britain by Rupert Hart-Davis in 1970, with an English translation by Patrick O'Brian. The book was adapted for a Hollywood film of the same name in 1973, starring Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, as well as another in 2017, starring Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek. Charrière also published a sequel to Papillon, called Banco, in 1973.
Papillon has been described as "The greatest adventure story of all time" and "A modern classic of courage and excitement".
Autobiographical authenticity
Although Charrière always maintained, until his death in 1973, that events in the book were truthful and accurate, since the book's publication there have been questions raised about its accuracy. The authenticity of the book was challenged most notably by French journalist Gérard de Villiers, author of Papillon Épinglé, who stated that "only about 10 percent of Charrière's book represents the truth".Charrière reportedly had a reputation as a great storyteller, and critics have suggested that Papillon is more about a fictional character than the author. Charrière always said his account was true, and that he told the story to a professional writer, who drafted it in final form. The publisher, Robert Laffont, in a late interview before his death, said that the work had been submitted to him as a novel. Laffont specialised in publishing true adventures, and he persuaded Charrière to release the book as an autobiography.
As well as claims that not all events and jails which Charrière describes correspond to the time frame of events in the book, there are also similarities between sections of Papillon, and sections of a book written thirty years earlier - La Guillotine Sèche. Dry Guillotine, written by René Belbenoît, was published in 1938, and was also an autobiographical account of Belbenoît's incarceration on, and escape from, the French penal colony in French Guiana. The most notable similarities between these books were:
- Both authors described similar encounters with Goajira Indians. Belbenoît and Charrière both stated that they had, whilst escaping from the French penal colony, met and lived with tribes of Goajira Indians who lived on the Guajira Peninsula. Both also stated they had taken Indian wives during these periods.
- Both authors also related a story about a group of escapers who had turned to cannibalism to survive. Whilst not necessarily unusual in itself, both authors also told how one member of the group of escapers had had a wooden leg, and that he had been killed and eaten by the group of escapers, and that his wooden leg has been used as a spit, or as kindling, for the cooking fire. Whilst Belbenoît stated in his book that he had been part of the group of escapers that had turned to cannibalism, Charrière related the story as having happened to a group of other inmates who were incarcerated in the French penal colony at the time of his stay.
Having questioned the accuracy of Papillon as an autobiography, there are a number of facts which are not in question, which do validate Charrière's novel. These include:
- That French Guiana operated as a penal colony from 1852 until 1946. Those transported there ranged from political detainees to those convicted of crimes such as murder, rape, robbery and smaller petty crimes. Anyone receiving a sentence of more than eight years was exiled from France for life.
- That conditions at the penal colony were extremely severe - "Forty per cent of new arrivals to the colony perished within the first year. Of the 80,000 or so who were transported during the colony's 94-year existence, few made it back to France. Most were killed by the merciless nature of the forced labour, the poor diet, and lack of protection from the myriad diseases rampant in the unfamiliar tropical environment. Many died during escape attempts, savaged by wild animals, ravaged by scurvy, or picked off by professional escaper hunters - or in the case of sea-bound escapes, drowned or were eaten by the sharks that infest the coastal waters."
- Charrière was born in the Ardèche, France, in 1906.
- Charrière was sentenced in 1931 to hard life for murder and sent to the French penal colony in French Guiana, from which he eventually escaped.
- Charrière did escape, became a Venezuelan citizen, successful restaurateur and best-selling author.