“I live for only one thing: escape. It was my idée fixe.“ (263)

“Live, live, live. Each time I was tempted to despair, I would repeat three times: ‘As long as there’s life, there’s hope.'” (291)

You ever run across a game-changing book? A book so grand it floats right to the top of your must-read, favorites-of-all-time list? Papillon did that for me this week.

I’ve had this book on my shelf for years, and I while I’ve always been drawn to it, memories of the 1973 Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman film have prevented me from reading it. That’s not because I didn’t like the film—I loved it!—but because I thought that, since I already knew the story, I wouldn’t enjoy the book as much. What a foolish thought and hindrance that was!

It doesn’t matter if a reader already knows from the film that Henri Charriere successfully escapes from an island prison by floating away on a raft. Of course he escapes. He wrote the quintessential book about escape! But what the film-watcher might not know (or remember) is that Charriere didn’t just escape from a handful of prisons: he escaped from nine.

Nine!

Over a period of 14 years!

The detailed recollections of this man’s incredibly miserable life make for the most fascinating survival-adventure I have read in a long, long time. And I’ve read some great books lately! In fact, I would go so far as to say that Papillon now stands as a sturdy challenger to my all-time favorite book, Alive, by Piers Paul Read (1974). The thrills and tension, drama and romance, violence and decadence, murder, shipwrecks, betrayal, escapes, and redemption—seriously, this book has it all.

Its constantly-fugitive storyline reminded me of Geoffrey Household’s books. His multiple escapes by sea reminded me of Stephen Callahan’s Adrift. His little native wife nibble-kissing his face reminded me (oddly) of Silvio Micheli’s Mongolia. And yet the sum of this books is so much more than all its parts.

It’s not a book for the faint-hearted (or youth), though, filled as it is with capsules of cash hidden up the rectum (called “plans”), polygamy on the island with 14- and 18-year-old native sisters, and prison-style homosexuality so rampant that it almost feels normal. The brutality of murders and the filth of prisons riddled with centipedes and rats made for some terribly disgusting yet fascinating scenes. And normally, I’d not continue with such filth, but this is non-fiction! How can I tune out someone’s life story? How could I turn a guy off who’s endured to much? This story is gritty to be sure, but it’s real, and it’s one of those books that’s just too hard to put down.

Charriere’s spiritual growth is also something to note throughout this book covering fourteen years of his life. While in one scene, this avowed atheist hurls some horrendously vile obscenities’ towards God, he also finds comfort in the possibilities of a loving Divine. When speaking to one Catholic priest (misguided as the priest proved to be), Charriere retains this paragraph of advice:

“Sometimes God wills for one of his children to experience human wickedness so that he will emerge stronger and nobler than ever. Don’t you see, my son, that if you hadn’t had this Calvary to climb, you would never have been able to raise yourself so near to God’s truth? Let me put it another way: the men, the system, the cogs of the machine that ground you down, the evil men who framed you and tortured you, have rendered you the greatest service possible. They brought forth a new man, superior to the first, and if today you recognize honor, goodness and charity, and realize the energy you will need to surmount the obstacles and become someone superior, you owe it to them. Your idea of vengeance, of punishing everybody according to the injury inflicted on you, goes against the grain of your character. You must be a saver of men, and not live in order to do evil, even though you think the evil is justified. God was generous to you.” (109)

Then later, after many years of suffering, while he floats away on a raft during one of his final cavales (escapes), he admits:

“God is with you today, Papi! In the midst of nature’s monstrous elements, in the wind, the immenseness of the sea, the depths of the waves, the imposing green roof of the bush, you feel your own infinitesimal smallness, and perhaps it’s here, without looking for Him, that you find God, that you touch Him with your finger. I had sensed Him at night during the thousands of hours I had spent buried alive in dank dungeons without a ray of sun; I touched Him today in a sun that would devour everything too weak to resist it. I touched God, I felt Him around me, inside me. He even whispered in my ear: ‘You suffer; you will suffer more. But this time I am on your side. You will be free. You will, I promise you.'” (376)

I will not go so far to say that Charriere found his Redeemer at this juncture, but his shift from atheism to acceptance of the existence of a loving God was huge. I only hope that he later deepened this relationship in repentance and dedication to follow the Lord.

I loved this book immensely, and while I’m sure there’s tons more I could quote or say about it, I won’t. Read it for yourself. You 100% guaranteed will not be disappointed.

©2022 E.T.