I’ve got a bad/pretentious habit of always selecting big-L Literature when I’m looking for my next book to read.  I often fail, pretending Japanese pop or turn of the century comedy are Important Works.  I blame it on choosing to study Spanish Lit rather than English Lit in college.  So, while I have impressive and useless knowledge of all the obras grandes of Spain and Latin America, I’m totally ignorant of everything else.  Luckily for me, every Christmas provides me with a selection of books that I otherwise would never have chose to read.  (A Shining Example.)

One such book, a gift from a photographer friend of mine, is Papillon.  Papillon is an autobiography by Henri Charriere, chronicles his many attempts at excape from French(and other) jails in Carribean.  Papillon had always been sort of on my radar, because several of my friends had recommended it over the year, and mkrbrk3, Fellow Projects Where’s the Wire? evan had a song titled “Papillon” . So upon receiving it this year, I was excited to read it. I’m generally not much for autobiographies, but this looked good.

Papillon, the nickname of Henri Charriere, was found guilty of murder in Paris in the early 30s.  His punishment was to spend life in prison in a penal colony in French Guyana, from which he escaped/attemped to escape multiple times until finally succeeding after 14 years.  Until the last, successful try at freedom, each attempt left him only temporarily free, until he was caught and had to escape from yet another prison.  From what I’ve read about the book since finishing it is that it’s generally considered to be at least partially ficticious.  There’s not fun in not believing it, so we might as well believe.

That issue of faith is really the most interesting part of the story, aside from the picaresque adventures.  In the first few pages of the novel, Papillon tells a priest he doesn’t no how to pray, having never had religious instruction.   “Father, forgive me, but I never had religious instruction.  I don’t know how to pray” he laments/excuses himself.  Later, another priest offers to baptize him, but he refuses baptism, not wanting to betray his secular father.  He seldom mentions anything god-related in the beginning, but God creeps in, little by little.  After each failed attempt, he blaims God a little more, then at the end thanks God for all he’s given him.  I suppose its a reflection of the “there are no atheists in foxholes” mentality, but it’s funny how God goes from playing no role, to an adverse role, to being his savior.  At the end, after being released for the last time: “My heart was thumping, I wanted to get down on my knees to pray and thak God.  ‘But, Papi, you don’t know how to pray, and you’ve never been baptized.  What God do you propose to pray to when you don’t belong to any religion?'”  He decides that he’s basically a Christian, and prays.  Throughout, his idea of God is less religious really than just another word for fate or luck.

The other element that caught my attention was the way various other territories treated the escape convicts.  From my space in history and understanding of the world, I just assumed extradition was the norm, however the system for determining what to do with them was much more haphazard and patchwork.  Colombia had no official policy; Venezuela would make you do hard labor for awhile and then return you; Britain would allow you to stay for a week or two, but then you had to continue on; Indians would (maybe) just kill you.  In explaining his nation’s position, one officer says:  “In England, you would have been hanged.  However, it’s not for British authorities to judge French justice.  What we don’t approve of is the way they send their convicts to French Guiana.  It’s inhuman and unworthy of a civilized nation like France.”  The situation gets more complicated when World War 2 starts, when the controlling forces in French Guiana support the Vichy government.  So, not only a fun story about escape, an interesting take on 1930s/40s geopolitics from a Caribbean point of view.

It sorta falls into a common trap in autobiographies.  The narrator presents himself in such positive light, as such an ethical guy, as such a natural leader, so resourceful, it’s hard to really believe it and causes even the mundane details about him to seem suspicious.  He’s not as bad as other examples (like Howard Stern in the Howard Stern movie!!!), and he does admit a few times his questionalbe decisions, but it’s still striking that, time after time, Papillon saves the day.  Whatever.   The overall message- FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT TO PARTY, essentially- is uplifting enough to get me to cook myself a nice dinner tonight, so on that front it wins.

So, that’s Papillon.  It’s a fun, quick read, though its shocking how many times he gets caught and escaped and gets caught.  Toward the end of the book, you start thinking “Okay, the rest of this is just denoument or maybe there’s an appendix or something,” but then he gets caught and sent to yet another prison.  I’m glad I didn’t know that it was mostly ficticious when I read it, but I doubt it really changes the way I would have enjoyed it.