The Damage Done: Twelve Years Of Hell In A Bangkok Prison (1999) - Plot & Excerpts
4,000 Days was offered to me as an excellent way to get myself out of a reading slump. I'd burned myself out on 400 page novels with brilliant writing and needed something a bit less involving. While I'm not entirely happy with the book, the recommendation was spot on and I found myself finishing it in one sitting.Telling the story of Warren Fellows, 4,000 Days is more-or-less exactly what the cover promises. Told in a simple, straight-forward style, it is a loose and hurried account of a man's experiences being ruined in the Bangkok prison system. While it is certainly gruesome from cover to cover, it is not a collection of unbelievably horrible things. It is instead a collection of perfectly credible horrible things, and although the author never forces details down your throat, he manages to get the point across of just how much time passed before he was finished coping with the abuse piled on him daily.All in all, it's a bit more nihilistic than I'd hoped, and the gloom and doom does not make for especially light reading, but it managed to keep me gripped the whole way through nonetheless. I'm not about to start recommending it left and right, but there are much worse ways to spend a cold winter's afternoon.
My husband is not a big reader, just tends to do it on holidays, and its never fiction. Someone recommended this book to him and he got through it pretty quickly to I thought it can't be too bad a read lets give it a go.Well the prologue alone made me feel pretty queazy, but I carried on. I would not say it is the easiest book to read, the way they are treated in the Thai prison is disgusting and the queasiness returned on several occasions. If for any reason you were thinking of trading in drugs in such a country I would like to think this book would change your mind! For a book that spends 12 years of his life in prison, it felt very short, although I'm not sure I could have read much more about the punishments received, I would have liked a bit more information about the people he met and became friends, with rather than just a paragraph here or there. He went into prison with a friend Paul but he is not mentioned a huge amount seeing as they spent so much time together there and were apparently such good friends. Warren says on a couple of occasions that he is not seeking sympathy for his crime but I felt that he never really felt bad or sorry for committing it.
What do You think about The Damage Done: Twelve Years Of Hell In A Bangkok Prison (1999)?
As with most people who read this book. I finished it in about two page-turning hours and thought it was a phenominal insight into the world of westerners involved with drugs in Asia. Warren wrote a straight to the point, one dimensional account of his experience - and it still receives a wealth of praise from both sides of the drug-debate fence. I say this because I wonder how my own book will be received, having written it with a literary bent straight from the heart of a full-on-and-mental life passionista!
—Chris Thrall
Wow what a relentlessly horrifying fable for anyone dumb enough to mule drugs from Thailand. This is the banged up abroad testimony of Aussie Warren Fellows, drug trafficker wannabe who was caught smuggling heroin with a friend in 1978. To coin a cliche it's a genuine page turner. The pacing is well timed, the quality of writing is engrossing and the story transports you to the hell that is Bang Kwang. This is a truly powerful piece of writing that left me shocked at the horrors he and the other prisoners suffered. The graphic descriptions of random beatings, humiliations and murder at the whim of sadistic guards lasted with me quite a while after finishing the book. The writers description of the pain of losing close friends to ill treatment and neglect in the Thai jail system and the despair he felt was so so sad. The trauma of his 12 years in hell was sadly so complete that even freedom brought its own problems of isolation and otherness for Warren Fellows. A truly sobering read.
—Chris
A quick read but not near as good as I expected it to be according to the ratings.Maybe I am spoiled but I have read 2 books about this same prison by 2 different Dutch guys.One of those books was so well written and told us the horrible experience he had to go through. But he did that in a much better way than Warren Fellows. This book felt rushed, written from the sideline.I do understand why this book got high ratings. I think that has lot to do with all the horrible and shocking things he had to undergo.It seems I was just spoiled. if that book by Pedro Ruizing is ever going to be published in English I'll let you know.
—♥ Marlene♥
