- Joined
- Jun 13, 2016
Been re-reading this recently.
The more I re-read it, the more I start to realise how obviously fabricated parts of it really are. I mean, I can believe the whole sixty days in the black hole at Caen Prison for minor infractions and the violence and the suicide attempts because French prisons are overcrowded and dismal and at one point in La Santé the leading cause of death was suicide. I can believe how he escaped from the penal hospital at Saint Laurent du Maroni - that's probably true.
He probably did manage to get to Colombia before being recaptured, however, I don't believe that he spent seven months with a previously uncontacted tribe of Indians and boning nubile indigenous girls without a care in the world. Especially considering that for the second half of the book he never mentions them again.
I don't believe he tried to escape from Barranquilla prison by dynamiting the wall.
I don't believe the business with selling gold coins and pearls.
I believe absolutely the story about how Kilometre 42 on the Guianan mainland had an 80 percent year on year mortality rate. Yellow fever is endemic to French Guiana and that, combined with short rations, and the idea behind the penal colony as a place where crims could be dumped and forgotten about.
I believe he did at least one stint on the islands, but since French penal records indicate he escaped from the mainland, I don't believe the business with leaping into the sea aboard a sack of coconuts and being drifted onshore with the tides.
I also don't believe he actually set foot on Devil's Island. That was reserved for political prisoners.
I do believe he managed to build a new life for himself in Venezuela though the bit with the quicksand-navigating piglet just before that is very hard to believe.
The more I re-read it, the more I start to realise how obviously fabricated parts of it really are. I mean, I can believe the whole sixty days in the black hole at Caen Prison for minor infractions and the violence and the suicide attempts because French prisons are overcrowded and dismal and at one point in La Santé the leading cause of death was suicide. I can believe how he escaped from the penal hospital at Saint Laurent du Maroni - that's probably true.
He probably did manage to get to Colombia before being recaptured, however, I don't believe that he spent seven months with a previously uncontacted tribe of Indians and boning nubile indigenous girls without a care in the world. Especially considering that for the second half of the book he never mentions them again.
I don't believe he tried to escape from Barranquilla prison by dynamiting the wall.
I don't believe the business with selling gold coins and pearls.
I believe absolutely the story about how Kilometre 42 on the Guianan mainland had an 80 percent year on year mortality rate. Yellow fever is endemic to French Guiana and that, combined with short rations, and the idea behind the penal colony as a place where crims could be dumped and forgotten about.
I believe he did at least one stint on the islands, but since French penal records indicate he escaped from the mainland, I don't believe the business with leaping into the sea aboard a sack of coconuts and being drifted onshore with the tides.
I also don't believe he actually set foot on Devil's Island. That was reserved for political prisoners.
I do believe he managed to build a new life for himself in Venezuela though the bit with the quicksand-navigating piglet just before that is very hard to believe.
