Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Papillon by Henri Charrière

6 reviews

daddylonglegz's review

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Torture, Violence, Police brutality, and Murder

carleesi's review

I should have stopped reading when he wrote about a 12 year old trying so hard to seduce him that he finally had to give him to make his “wife” happy 🤢 The racism was very difficult to stomach, as was the homophobia. 

It’s maybe 30% true (being generous) and sometimes interesting but I was done with reading his egotistical ramblings. Lots of people have covered how ludicrous it is that he’s told a story of everyone adoring him and sacrificing themselves to help him over and over again.

I wouldn’t recommend this book at all, I think it had its time and there are now much better adventures out there to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Homophobia, Racism, and Violence

seforana's review

adventurous challenging dark inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Dementia, Grief, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

camila22's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

La escritura de H. Charrière no se destaca por su complejidad ni mucho menos por el ritmo del relato - hasta que uno se acostumbra es bastante denso -, pero sí por la crudeza y severidad con la que expone al Sistema Penitenciario del siglo XX. Trece años de encierro marcados por una violencia institucional implacable, cuyo objetivo principal fue asfixiar todo vestigio de humanidad en sus presos. De momentos es un libro de terror, pero el protagonista siempre parte de la misma consigna: ser libre.
Papillon fue un hombre que a pesar de todas las adversidades inimaginables, nunca dejó de luchar por conseguir su libertad. En sus peores momentos se recordaba "Debo repetir en cada ocasión que esté a punto de abandonarme a la desesperación, tres veces, esta frase: «Mientras hay vida, hay esperanza.»". Una persona que en su perseverancia y autovalía finalmente logró vencer el camino de la podredumbre. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

naiu_cs's review against another edition

I just cannot deal with the fact that every messed up thing that the main character did is described as justifiable without any sort of reflection or criticism. The main character being the "hero" of the story (which fair, is his own life) is deeply problematic in the context of some of the things he does.

For example marrying children and engaging in sexual actvities with them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content and Murder

katzilla99's review

adventurous medium-paced

2.0

Henri was clearly a storyteller, not a writer. This was all very stream of consciousness with him saying things like "Oh, I'll talk about this later" or "This character dies a few days later but here is more of my interaction with them". Switched to the audiobook half way through and enjoyed that more I think due to Papillon's style, but I still didn't love it. Papillon was likely a very charismatic guy, but he added a lot of embellishment and hyperbole, I'm sure. Other than the writing style, I didn't like the homophobic slurs that were present throughout the book or that there were only a few female characters and two of them didn't even speak the same language as Papillon so they were really just bodies for him to have sex with. This really showed the misogyny present in Papillon which made sense with the time. I know that this is based on a true story so it's not like he could have added fictitious women, but it was still one of the reasons that I didn't enjoy this book as much as I wanted to. 
This story had good examples of hope, hard work, and adventure, but not one that I would recommend to anyone or ever reread.

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Content Warnings

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Death, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Cannibalism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Colonisation, War, and Injury/Injury detail