Papillon, Henri Charrière

If I had only one stroke to define Papillon, central character and at the same time author of this fascinating and entertaining autobiographical novel (in real life Papillon is the alias for Henri Charrière), I would definitely say that he is a person of an unwavering determination of purpose, which is to escape from the prison to which he has been sentenced for life. In fact, not a day passes in the thirteen years of captivity in which Papillon has not his mind set in contriving and getting ready for his next flight, always envisaging high risk plans, always bringing in the adventure those he considers his allies in suffering and always thinking that this will be the ultimate escape to freedom ... and revenge.

The year is 1931 and before a Paris court is brought Papillon, an urchin twenty-five years old, accused of killing an insignificant character of the Parisian underworld and police informer. Papillon asserts his innocence and the evidence against him is weak so he expects to be exonerated. However, he is face to face with the most ruthless public prosecutor imaginable who claims for himself the mission to avenge society of crime in the flesh of disreputable personages as Papillon, with no concern to whether he is guilty or not of the circumstantial accusation, especially if this is so grave that allows his putting away forever. Pradel is the man and in his first speech to the jury intimidates everyone with a threat to Papillon’s face, telling him: "Prisoner at the bar, just you keep quiet and above all don’t you attempt to defend yourself. I’ll send you down the drain alright."

Predictably Papillon gets life and is sent to serve his sentence in the infamous penal colonies of French Guiana on the northern coast of South America. The reminiscence of Victor Hugo's Inspector Javert is inescapable and along with Alfred Dreyfus, artfully accused by his colleagues in arms of treason to France on false charges and whose real and famous case is revisited in the book, give ground to our thinking that there was a long period in which the French courts used questionable methods for dispensing justice and brutally cruel sentences.

This injustice and cruelty embodied in Pradel and in the twelve jury members triggers in Papillon an unyielding desire for revenge that will accompany him throughout his ordeal and will impel him, together with knowing himself innocent, to staging nine escape attempts. This is what the book is all about, of each and all of Papillon’s breakout tries, all very daring, performed from impregnable precincts, some of them from islands in the ocean surrounded by sharks, sailing in miserable skiffs that, although are able to survive devastating Caribbean hurricanes, must then face a sun so strong that skins in a few hours the crew of such precarious boats.

The adventures and vicissitudes of Papillon in this hiatus of fourteen years are of great variety and interest: community prisons, solitary confinement cells below sea level, leper colonies, life with the Guajiro Indians, death by the sword, cemetery among sharks, but above all, the permanent concern of Papillon for his survival and health while he is forging the next escape. Being an autobiographical novel it is awe inspiring the great presence of mind of its protagonist all along this horrible and extensive torture, never letting himself faint and keeping his humanity in perfect balance: his body, with daily exercises and rationed food; his mind, with all sort of calculations and rigorous plans; his heart with a lavish inclination to being of help to the rest of the convicts; and his soul with constant invocations to God, despite his assumed atheism. If we are to believe everything Papillon tells us in his book, he is the ultimate leader and companion, giving everyone his due and maintaining a strong temperance in the most extreme situations.

This is an highly entertaining book, enlivened with several subsidiary anecdotes that refresh the reading - like the story of the hermit prisoner who is invited by two others to feast on a rabbit stew as a consolation for the recent loss of her beloved cat, only to learn shortly afterwards that it was precisely it what they ate, and the revenge he executes on the two rogues - with some interesting reflections on life and human nature and that reads with relish and agility, despite its 500 plus pages.

So much goes the water to the stone that at the end Papillon manages to extricate himself from the "Pradelian sewer" and discover at the same time the grace of God, rehabilitating himself from his criminal past and giving up his plans for revenge. A must read.

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