Ebook Papillon PS Henri Charriere Books
Ebook Papillon PS Henri Charriere Books
Download As PDF : Papillon PS Henri Charriere Books
“A modern classic of courage and excitement.” —The New Yorker
Soon to be a Major Motion Picture Starring Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek
Henri Charrière, nicknamed "Papillon," for the butterfly tattoo on his chest, was convicted in Paris in 1931 of a murder he did not commit. Sentenced to life imprisonment in the penal colony of French Guiana, he became obsessed with one goal escape. After planning and executing a series of treacherous yet failed attempts over many years, he was eventually sent to the notorious prison, Devil's Island, a place from which no one had ever escaped . . . until Papillon. His flight to freedom remains one of the most incredible feats of human cunning, will, and endurance ever undertaken.
Charrière's astonishing autobiography, Papillon, was first published in France to instant acclaim in 1968, more than twenty years after his final escape. Since then, it has become a treasured classic--the gripping, shocking, ultimately uplifting odyssey of an innocent man who would not be defeated.
“A first-class adventure story.” — New York Review of Books
Ebook Papillon PS Henri Charriere Books
"Wow what a story of hardship, survival and a test of the human spirit. Whilst there is conjecture as to the honesty of Papillion story it is still a great read. One I couldn’t put down. The cinematic portraits of Papillon do not do justice to what it must have actually been like. At times I was in despair for Papillon and at others angry with him. This was the roller coaster ride of this book. A must read."
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Tags : Papillon (P.S.) (8601410940706) Henri Charriere Books,Henri Charriere,Papillon (P.S.),William Morrow Paperbacks,0061120669,Historical,Charriaere, Henri,Charriere, Henri,Prisoners - French Guiana,Prisoners;French Guiana;Biography.,1906-1973,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Criminals Outlaws,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures,Biography,Biography Autobiography,Biography Autobiography/Literary Figures,Biography / Autobiography,Biography/Autobiography,Biography literary,Charriáere, Henri,,Criminals Outlaws,French Guiana,GENERAL,General Adult,Literary,Non-Fiction,PRISON LIFE,Prisoners,South America,TRUE CRIME / General,True Crime General,True Crime/General,United States,papillon; Henri Charriere; Patrick O’ Brian; nonfiction; memoir; prison escape; adventure; daring; french literature; french; history; crime; autobiography; prison; classic; historical; true story; translated; foreign; europe,BIO024000,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Criminals Outlaws,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary,BIOGRAPHY AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures,Biography Autobiography/Literary Figures,Criminals Outlaws,General,Literary,TRU000000,TRUE CRIME / General,True Crime General,True Crime/General,Biography / Autobiography,1906-1973,Biography,Charriáere, Henri,,French Guiana,Prisoners,Prison Life,Biography Autobiography,Biography/Autobiography,Biography literary
Papillon PS Henri Charriere Books Reviews :
Papillon PS Henri Charriere Books Reviews
- I never write reviews, mostly because if I am reading a good book usually people don't need me to tell them the book is a classic, if the book is bad or just a book layover until something better comes along, why write a review? What should I say? Predictable and so so, if you have a couple of hours to kill...read this.
Papillion had me entranced, I can't explain in words the emotions I felt while reading Henri's story. The amount of detail and emotions he poured into his story literally makes you feel as if you're there, surviving, escaping, crying, loving, and living. I would recommend this story to anyone. - Sold 4 million copies in France in 4 years from being published in 1969. Was translated into dozens of languages and it inspired a major Hollywood movie, with Dustin Hoffman and I believe Steve McQueen, which was a dud. There are nay-sayers that say he made it all up, but they offer no evidence. There are other books about French penal colonies in South America in the 1930s and 40s, which corroborate his account. Also his publisher and friends testified that the story is true and he wrote it in Venezuela in his 60s. It's very good writing, a very cool story. I love the audio book narration.
- I see reviews here of people who give 1 star because they don't believe the story was true. Key word "story". Whether or not this story is actually true does not deter from the fact that the book is extremely entertaining and well written. Take it for what it's worth and enjoy the ride....like other people's stories aren't embellished as well )
Afterwards I saw the movie with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. A fun movie but I preferred the book.
Enjoy this classic. - Great book if you're super gullible. I read the first 115 pages and decided to stop reading. Sure I considered reading it as fiction, but knowing it was told as fact just made me madder.
This book is full of tall tales and embellishments. Sure, he probably escaped, and that's probably the thin strand of truth in this plot of embellishments and tall tales. It's like listening to President Trump. You know there is a strand of truth there, but the embellishing and bragging and fact bending really obstructs any truth you are trying to find. - As somebody with attention deficit issues it should say something that this book, though not terribly fast paced, held my attention captive until the end. This is by far one of the best books I've had the pleasure of reading. I personally hold the author in high regard due to his views on personal liberty and how necessary it is to fight unrelentingly against any organization or government that may seek to impede upon it.
- Had seen the movie previously to reading the book. Both are great, but, as usual, the book gives so much more insight to the story. The feeling you get from the pages really inspire, disturb, and infect you with the feeling of what life was like in the French penal colony of Devil's Island.
- Wow what a story of hardship, survival and a test of the human spirit. Whilst there is conjecture as to the honesty of Papillion story it is still a great read. One I couldn’t put down. The cinematic portraits of Papillon do not do justice to what it must have actually been like. At times I was in despair for Papillon and at others angry with him. This was the roller coaster ride of this book. A must read.
- This memoir, quasi-autobiographical fiction or whatever one wants to dub it, is, as almost all the reviewers here attest, a gripping narrative of the human condition and source of strength and hope for anyone, especially anyone undergoing the trials and tribulations of man's inhumanity to man.
True, Charrière more often than not comes across as a bit of an incarcerated flâneur with a sort of noblesse oblige toward everyone involved, from fellow prisoners to guards, wardens, administrators, the lot. But he has a sense of humour about his own hyperbolic amour-propre which makes it endurable. At one point, faced with a dilemma in this moral code of his, he writes
"I smiled at the prospect of having to search out an evil policeman with no family. How should I put it to him'If I kill you, are you sure no one will miss you?'"
Very droll, Papi.
All this aside, what marks this book out from other books of the sort is the detailed descriptions of the torrid conditions of the tropic zone where our hero spends his sentence. They are utterly convincing, and if there's one thing to which everyone agrees it's that, guilty or not, Henri Charrière did spend much of his life on penal colonies such as the Île-Royale, described thus
"The noon sun was leaden-a tropical sun to boil the brain in your skull; a sun that shrivelled the plants not yet grown strong enough to resist it; a sun that, in a few hours, dried up all but the deepest salt-water pools, leaving only a white film of salt; a sun that set the air to dancing-it literally moved before my eyes-its reflection on the water burning my pupils."
In his second stay in solitary confinement, he pens - perhaps a bit too overtly - a passage worthy of France's greatest writer, who famously confined himself to a cork-lined closet during much of his latter years
"Such sharp recollections of moments and events fifteen years in the past, and the ability to relive them so intensely, can only be accomplished in a cell where you're cut off from all noise, in the most absolute silence. I can even see the yellow of Aunt Outine's dress. I could hear the wind in the chestnut trees, the dry noise a chestnut makes as it falls on the ground, or its soft thump when it hits a pile of leaves...And there was no one to stop me from rolling around in these memories and drinking in the peace so necessary to my battered soul."
Despite the nod Proust-wards here, there can be no doubt in the reader's mind after finishing the book, despite questions about specifics, that the writer has indeed been battered in soul and in body and seen the very best and the very worst of which humans are capable, and that the reader, vicariously, has done so as well.
As Papillon says about the halfway fictitious explanation of an incident concocted, in order to save their skins and positions, by both guards and prisoners for the administration on one of the colonies
"It has since remained part legend, part true story."
So with "Papillon" and his harrowing tale of hope amidst the darkest adversity.
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