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De zondebok
Een eenzame Engelse professor en een Franse baron in moeilijkheden ontdekken tijdens een ontmoeting in een Frans dorpscafé dat zij dubbelgangers zijn. De baron zorgt er door een slinkse manoeuvre voor dat de Engelsman zijn plaats op het kasteel inneemt. De 'nieuwe' baron de Gué ziet zich geconfronteerd met gecompliceerde familieverhoudingen, en het dreigende faillissement van de glasfabriek waarover hij de scepter zwaait. Hij blijkt overal de centrale rol in te spelen, en hij wringt zich in bochten om zichzelf en anderen uit moeilijke en pijnlijke situaties te redden.
Zal de familie van de ware baron de Gué de situatie doorzien, of zal zijn plaatsvervanger voorgoed gedwongen zijn de plaats op het kasteel in te nemen?
Zal de familie van de ware baron de Gué de situatie doorzien, of zal zijn plaatsvervanger voorgoed gedwongen zijn de plaats op het kasteel in te nemen?
293 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1957
921 people are currently reading
18831 people want to read
About the author
Daphne du Maurier
425 books10.2k followersDaphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.
She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,761 reviews
January 23, 2023
Jestem nieco rozczarowana zakończeniem. Ale oprócz tego, książka bardzo bardzo dobra
February 15, 2017
My only complaint with reading a Daphne du Maurier novel is that every book I pick up for some time afterwards pales in comparison. The depth of the characterizations, the richly described settings, and the undercurrent of suspense throughout never fail to enthrall me. No less so with this one, The Scapegoat. I found myself once again under du Maurier’s spell.
John is an Englishman well-educated in everything French – the language, the history and the culture. He passes on all his knowledge as a lecturer at a university; he travels in France with ease. What he lacks, however, is a connection with the people. At the tail end of a tour in this country, John has fallen victim to a feeling of melancholy, of failure. He feels as an outsider, both in his own country of England as well as in France. He yearns to feel a part of the people, a kinship with his fellow human beings.
"Years of study, years of training, the fluency with which I spoke their language, taught their history, described their culture, had never brought me closer to the people themselves. I was too diffident, too conscious of my own reserve. My knowledge was library knowledge, and my day-by-day experience no deeper than a tourist’s gleanings. The urge to know was with me, and the ache. The smell of the soil, the gleam of the wet roads, the faded paint of shutters masking windows through which I should never look, the grey faces of houses whose doors I should never enter, were to me an everlasting reproach, a reminder of distance, of nationality. Others could force an entrance and break the barrier down: not I. I should never be a Frenchman, never be one of them."
Anyone that has ever hungered to be a part of a group, but yet always felt as a stranger, will relate to John here. What should happen, however, if you had the opportunity to take someone’s place? Would you do it? When John bumps into an exact likeness of himself in a tavern, he is given precisely this chance. While John is a lonely man with a feeling of emptiness inside, Comte Jean de Gué claims to have only the problem of having too many ‘human’ possessions. Jean wants to play a clever game – that of switching identities with John and assuming each other’s lives. When John wakes the next morning, stripped of his own clothes and everything he had on his person, what choice does he have but to put on another man’s clothes, take his suitcase and assume this new life?
"Just as an actor paints old lines upon a young face, or hides behind the part he must create, so the old anxious self that I knew too well could be submerged and forgotten, and the new self would be someone without a care, without responsibility, calling himself Jean de Gué... "
If only life were this simple. If only human relationships were straightforward, with little or no difficulties, no web of intricacies to disentangle. John, as the new Comte Jean de Gué, finds himself taking on a failing business and a family with secrets and complex feelings. John will come to know Jean through this family and his interactions with them. Jean may not be the kind of person our narrator would wish to emulate if given a choice. But isn’t he somehow responsible for these people now that he has allowed himself to be an accomplice to this deception? Does he want Jean to fail because he feels a victim in this charade? Perhaps John is Jean de Gué’s scapegoat, or maybe another is fulfilling this role in the drama that plays out in this wounded family.
I was completely absorbed in this book. The psychological complexities and moral dilemmas, the Gothic-like atmosphere, and the superior writing that I have come to expect from Daphne du Maurier left me thoroughly satisfied. You really must read this if you have not. There’s so much more to this author than just her masterpiece, Rebecca, and you would be missing out if you didn’t immerse yourself in every last bit she had to offer – I know I will!
John is an Englishman well-educated in everything French – the language, the history and the culture. He passes on all his knowledge as a lecturer at a university; he travels in France with ease. What he lacks, however, is a connection with the people. At the tail end of a tour in this country, John has fallen victim to a feeling of melancholy, of failure. He feels as an outsider, both in his own country of England as well as in France. He yearns to feel a part of the people, a kinship with his fellow human beings.
"Years of study, years of training, the fluency with which I spoke their language, taught their history, described their culture, had never brought me closer to the people themselves. I was too diffident, too conscious of my own reserve. My knowledge was library knowledge, and my day-by-day experience no deeper than a tourist’s gleanings. The urge to know was with me, and the ache. The smell of the soil, the gleam of the wet roads, the faded paint of shutters masking windows through which I should never look, the grey faces of houses whose doors I should never enter, were to me an everlasting reproach, a reminder of distance, of nationality. Others could force an entrance and break the barrier down: not I. I should never be a Frenchman, never be one of them."
Anyone that has ever hungered to be a part of a group, but yet always felt as a stranger, will relate to John here. What should happen, however, if you had the opportunity to take someone’s place? Would you do it? When John bumps into an exact likeness of himself in a tavern, he is given precisely this chance. While John is a lonely man with a feeling of emptiness inside, Comte Jean de Gué claims to have only the problem of having too many ‘human’ possessions. Jean wants to play a clever game – that of switching identities with John and assuming each other’s lives. When John wakes the next morning, stripped of his own clothes and everything he had on his person, what choice does he have but to put on another man’s clothes, take his suitcase and assume this new life?
"Just as an actor paints old lines upon a young face, or hides behind the part he must create, so the old anxious self that I knew too well could be submerged and forgotten, and the new self would be someone without a care, without responsibility, calling himself Jean de Gué... "
If only life were this simple. If only human relationships were straightforward, with little or no difficulties, no web of intricacies to disentangle. John, as the new Comte Jean de Gué, finds himself taking on a failing business and a family with secrets and complex feelings. John will come to know Jean through this family and his interactions with them. Jean may not be the kind of person our narrator would wish to emulate if given a choice. But isn’t he somehow responsible for these people now that he has allowed himself to be an accomplice to this deception? Does he want Jean to fail because he feels a victim in this charade? Perhaps John is Jean de Gué’s scapegoat, or maybe another is fulfilling this role in the drama that plays out in this wounded family.
I was completely absorbed in this book. The psychological complexities and moral dilemmas, the Gothic-like atmosphere, and the superior writing that I have come to expect from Daphne du Maurier left me thoroughly satisfied. You really must read this if you have not. There’s so much more to this author than just her masterpiece, Rebecca, and you would be missing out if you didn’t immerse yourself in every last bit she had to offer – I know I will!
April 6, 2025
‘WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEART OF MEN?’
‘The SHADOW Knows...’
(with assorted Backstage Evil Cackles)
- WWII-Era Radio Show.
Back in the J.F.K. Era, my grandmother belonged to the Book-of-the- Month Club. Is that still around?
Anyway, one December she got a new book everybody was raving about back then - The Scapegoat.
The deal was, if you didn’t mail the book back in time, it was yours.
But - to her - it seemed the perfect Christmas gift for my young self! I never knew WHY until I finally started to read it, sixty-odd years later (thanks to my friend Sara’s recommendation on GR)!
John is leading a drifting, meaningless life. Until... he meets his Shadow, the evil Frenchman Jean - his Exact Double.
Evil Jean conks him out with booze, changes John's identity into his own privileged, noble one- then exits, stage right.
(When I was 19, the docs also conked me out - with pills - and stole my identity too! I was suddenly soulless. But there’s a hidden grace - an upside to that…
You see, I now assimilate the identity of any character in any book I read!)
But, John? John is left to himself in a strange château, with a strange new identity and even stranger new family.
Will John fool them all and turn his madcap Shadow's Evil plans into Good - and finally give his own life purpose in the process?
Okay! Now the reason why my grandmother gave it to me.
I was like John as a kid - a reader; a dreamer; an underachiever. What was I worth to the world at large?
Perhaps quite a lot!
You see, the evil In this world never sleeps - but we’ll never know it if we’re hypnotized by all the glitz & glam of the entertainment world...
No, we won’t know. But the world knows US.
And it wants to exchange identities with us. And totally assimilate our innocence into its own cynical essence.
Some folks call it coming of age.
And that’s the trick the worldly sophisticate Jean plays with his naïve lookalike!
Don’t believe me?
Take a look around you, at all those vast legions of cynical, weary, burnt-out souls - lost in their private hells.
Yes, there was a wise warning in my Grandmother’s gift on the last Christmas of my preteens.
Be careful HOW you mature!
And keep your DREAMS & IDEALS ALIVE.
***
This classic gem is a piece of riveting. edge-of-your-seat suspense in the best tradition of the Queen of Cliffhangers.
With all kinds of deeper meanings for EACH of us...
And NOW you know just how wise my dear old grandmother was!
‘The SHADOW Knows...’
(with assorted Backstage Evil Cackles)
- WWII-Era Radio Show.
Back in the J.F.K. Era, my grandmother belonged to the Book-of-the- Month Club. Is that still around?
Anyway, one December she got a new book everybody was raving about back then - The Scapegoat.
The deal was, if you didn’t mail the book back in time, it was yours.
But - to her - it seemed the perfect Christmas gift for my young self! I never knew WHY until I finally started to read it, sixty-odd years later (thanks to my friend Sara’s recommendation on GR)!
John is leading a drifting, meaningless life. Until... he meets his Shadow, the evil Frenchman Jean - his Exact Double.
Evil Jean conks him out with booze, changes John's identity into his own privileged, noble one- then exits, stage right.
(When I was 19, the docs also conked me out - with pills - and stole my identity too! I was suddenly soulless. But there’s a hidden grace - an upside to that…
You see, I now assimilate the identity of any character in any book I read!)
But, John? John is left to himself in a strange château, with a strange new identity and even stranger new family.
Will John fool them all and turn his madcap Shadow's Evil plans into Good - and finally give his own life purpose in the process?
Okay! Now the reason why my grandmother gave it to me.
I was like John as a kid - a reader; a dreamer; an underachiever. What was I worth to the world at large?
Perhaps quite a lot!
You see, the evil In this world never sleeps - but we’ll never know it if we’re hypnotized by all the glitz & glam of the entertainment world...
No, we won’t know. But the world knows US.
And it wants to exchange identities with us. And totally assimilate our innocence into its own cynical essence.
Some folks call it coming of age.
And that’s the trick the worldly sophisticate Jean plays with his naïve lookalike!
Don’t believe me?
Take a look around you, at all those vast legions of cynical, weary, burnt-out souls - lost in their private hells.
Yes, there was a wise warning in my Grandmother’s gift on the last Christmas of my preteens.
Be careful HOW you mature!
And keep your DREAMS & IDEALS ALIVE.
***
This classic gem is a piece of riveting. edge-of-your-seat suspense in the best tradition of the Queen of Cliffhangers.
With all kinds of deeper meanings for EACH of us...
And NOW you know just how wise my dear old grandmother was!
February 9, 2017
Thank You to the MANY readers who came before me: I'm no longer a virgin to author
"Daphne Du Mauier". Special thanks to Jean, Sara, and Candy.
Two men....one English, "John"...( the narrator), the other French, "Jean de Gue", meet by chance one evening. It's like looking into a mirror: they look almost identical- other than the color of their eyes.
At the start of the novel, we learn that John- on holiday in France...
was a historian and gave lectures in England about his country and it's past. Not married - and has no children.
And even though he was English - he studied French for years. He taught their history, and described their culture, however he felt like an outsider - an alien. He wasn't one of them.... but wished to be. He wished to be bound by a family..... share their laughter and sorrow.
Due to his depression - he walked the streets at night in the rain and knew he must get drunk. He also was thinking of spending a few days at a monastery in hopes of finding the courage to go on living before returning to England.
Over drinks in a bar, John shares with Jean de Gue how as an individual, he feels like a failure.
Jean de Gue tells John that we've all 'failed' - everyone has. He tells him:
"The secret of life is to recognize the fact early on, and become reconciled. Then it no longer matters".
John says: "It does matter, I am not reconciled".
During this evening the men continue drinking and talking. Jean de Gue takes John to a restaurant....driving John's car ( after all, he knows it city best), and brings them to a shabby hotel.... and says "Sometimes, these places can be useful".
USEFUL FOR WHAT???
After the fourth drink....the men let down their guards more.
John continued to talk about loneliness, death, and the empty shell of his personal world.
Jean de Gue, master of a chateau, and director of a failing business says, "You complain that your life is empty", to me it sounds like paradise. An apartment to yourself, no family, no business worries".
Jean de Gue's voice changed - its clear he had personal problems too - felt resentment. He said he had a sister who only thinks about religion and nothing else.
He thinks the only motive force in human nature is "GREED". People in Jean de Gue's life were never satisfied--[from his point of view].
So... I ask: .... if you have read this far:
.....which of these two men's life sounds most attractive to you? Would you rather be without a family, with no responsibilities, but also feel lonely, depressed and empty?
Or, have many people counting on you - wife - mother - daughter - brother - sister-in-law- friends with benefits - business associates- and feel resentful?
And if you could step into one of these men's lives - by trading places --as a stranger/ actor taking over the role.... how do you think you might make a difference? And how might you do harm? In THIS story...we get the opportunity to watch how the entire scenario - this crazy game - so to speak - affects each person.
As this story plays out ..... we watch how brilliantly John steps into Jean de Gue's life.....Funny transition scene - had to chuckle- a little!
Jean de Gue had acted wrongly. He ran away from his life, he escaped the emotions that he himself created. John brought forth 'his' emotions - and whether right or wrong...( I think even the most skeptical readers can suspend disbelief, in this masterfully written fiction novel), .....I had faith that what John was searching for would somehow transform not only him but heal bruised family members with empathy and love. But how? And at what cost?
When John first stepped into Jean de Gue's life, he noticed that his mother looked frightened. His sister silent. His brother hostile. His sister-in-law angry. His wife crying, and his daughter threw a tantrum. The dog, ignored him.
There are some "OH BOY" situations.... sticky as taffy! Also, this story is simply a
compelling fantasy ride with marvelous prose to boot!
The ending of this story calls for discussion!!! Personally -- I think it fits!
Off to join my group and read what others are saying! A book so much richer than many of the newer fiction books I often read. Just sayin!
A DELICIOUS BOOK!!! At least one of my top 20 favorites of all times!!!!!
"Daphne Du Mauier". Special thanks to Jean, Sara, and Candy.
Two men....one English, "John"...( the narrator), the other French, "Jean de Gue", meet by chance one evening. It's like looking into a mirror: they look almost identical- other than the color of their eyes.
At the start of the novel, we learn that John- on holiday in France...
was a historian and gave lectures in England about his country and it's past. Not married - and has no children.
And even though he was English - he studied French for years. He taught their history, and described their culture, however he felt like an outsider - an alien. He wasn't one of them.... but wished to be. He wished to be bound by a family..... share their laughter and sorrow.
Due to his depression - he walked the streets at night in the rain and knew he must get drunk. He also was thinking of spending a few days at a monastery in hopes of finding the courage to go on living before returning to England.
Over drinks in a bar, John shares with Jean de Gue how as an individual, he feels like a failure.
Jean de Gue tells John that we've all 'failed' - everyone has. He tells him:
"The secret of life is to recognize the fact early on, and become reconciled. Then it no longer matters".
John says: "It does matter, I am not reconciled".
During this evening the men continue drinking and talking. Jean de Gue takes John to a restaurant....driving John's car ( after all, he knows it city best), and brings them to a shabby hotel.... and says "Sometimes, these places can be useful".
USEFUL FOR WHAT???
After the fourth drink....the men let down their guards more.
John continued to talk about loneliness, death, and the empty shell of his personal world.
Jean de Gue, master of a chateau, and director of a failing business says, "You complain that your life is empty", to me it sounds like paradise. An apartment to yourself, no family, no business worries".
Jean de Gue's voice changed - its clear he had personal problems too - felt resentment. He said he had a sister who only thinks about religion and nothing else.
He thinks the only motive force in human nature is "GREED". People in Jean de Gue's life were never satisfied--[from his point of view].
So... I ask: .... if you have read this far:
.....which of these two men's life sounds most attractive to you? Would you rather be without a family, with no responsibilities, but also feel lonely, depressed and empty?
Or, have many people counting on you - wife - mother - daughter - brother - sister-in-law- friends with benefits - business associates- and feel resentful?
And if you could step into one of these men's lives - by trading places --as a stranger/ actor taking over the role.... how do you think you might make a difference? And how might you do harm? In THIS story...we get the opportunity to watch how the entire scenario - this crazy game - so to speak - affects each person.
As this story plays out ..... we watch how brilliantly John steps into Jean de Gue's life.....Funny transition scene - had to chuckle- a little!
Jean de Gue had acted wrongly. He ran away from his life, he escaped the emotions that he himself created. John brought forth 'his' emotions - and whether right or wrong...( I think even the most skeptical readers can suspend disbelief, in this masterfully written fiction novel), .....I had faith that what John was searching for would somehow transform not only him but heal bruised family members with empathy and love. But how? And at what cost?
When John first stepped into Jean de Gue's life, he noticed that his mother looked frightened. His sister silent. His brother hostile. His sister-in-law angry. His wife crying, and his daughter threw a tantrum. The dog, ignored him.
There are some "OH BOY" situations.... sticky as taffy! Also, this story is simply a
compelling fantasy ride with marvelous prose to boot!
The ending of this story calls for discussion!!! Personally -- I think it fits!
Off to join my group and read what others are saying! A book so much richer than many of the newer fiction books I often read. Just sayin!
A DELICIOUS BOOK!!! At least one of my top 20 favorites of all times!!!!!
December 26, 2024
Have you ever wanted to run away from your life? What would happen if you suddenly had the chance to; would you "grasp the nettle"? Or what if a new life was imposed on you, whether you liked it or not? Such is the premise of Daphne du Maurier's 1957 novel, The Scapegoat.
The Scapegoat is reminiscent of novels such as, "The Prisoner of Zenda" and according to one of Daphne du Maurier's biographers, this rollicking adventure was a favourite story of Daphne's when she was a little girl. But it also owes a great deal to "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" as Daphne du Maurier also explores how two selves begin to feel as if they are part of the same person, the viewpoint character. In fact it is neither a straightforward adventure story as in Anthony Hope's tale, nor a dark study of two individuals; personalities within the same body, as in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror story. It lies somewhere between the two, yet is also an unsettling tale, full of suspense, sometimes even having a dream-like quality.
Daphne du Maurier had the idea for The Scapegoat when she was in France in 1955, to research the lives of her ancestors, the Busson-Mathurins, who were glass-blowers. She did subsequently write the novel for which she intended this research, entitling it "The Glassblowers" (1963). But before writing it, she became distracted by a number of incidents that happened to her in France, which inspired the plot of The Scapegoat, published in 1957. She apparently wrote it at record speed, finishing within six months, and then collapsed with nervous exhaustion.
One of the triggers was that while out for a walk in a square in a French town, Daphne du Maurier saw a man who looked identical to someone she happened to know. According to one of her biographers, Judith Cook, she then watched a family scene through a window, and began to put the two incidents together in her feverish imagination. Typically, she began to wonder about the people; who they were, and what their secrets might be,
"She imagined herself suddenly transported into their midst, listening to their conversation, perhaps even becoming one of them,"
and so the seeds of The Scapegoat were sown.
Another instance provides part of the novel's setting. Houses often seem to take on a life of their own in Daphne du Maurier's novels. For example, "Manderley" in "Rebecca", seems to be imbued with as much of a presence - to be as much a character - as any of the actual people in the book. Indeed in her own life, she seems to have had an almost obsessive love for her "Menabilly" the house she rented for so many years. Here in France, as part of her research, Daphne du Maurier discovered a house that had belonged to one of her ancestors two hundred years earlier. Exploring the derelict buildings, she saw fragments of the glass they had made, still there, scattered by the wind. She used these impressions and experiences, drawing on them to create an atmospheric, dramatic suspense novel, set in France.
In The Scapegoat, her ancestral glass-blowing foundry became the failing business of the de Gué family. They in turn were depicted as more grand, in fact minor aristocrats, the Comte and Comtesse. And instead of writing herself into the story, the author took on the guise of a male narrator, one of five occasions in major novels when she did this.
The narrator, and viewpoint character, is an Englishman named John. At the start of the novel we learnt that John is dissatisfied with his life as a university lecturer, and tending to become depressed with what he sees as a futile life. It is evident that he is travelling through France, where he meets a man who eerily is his double in looks; a confident French count, Jean de Gué. Intrigued despite himself, John plays along with the Count's wishes, indulging in a night of drinking, and staying in an anonymous downbeat hotel overnight. On waking, he discovers that the man has disappeared, taking all John's own clothes and belongings, and leaving him to play the role of the "Comte Jean de Gué". Thus we have the novel's basic premise.
At first confused, John then becomes angry,
"filled with an intense desire to get away from that dingy, shabby hotel and never set eyes on it again, and as my anger rose and self-disgust took possession of me..."
And a little later, he describes being,
"possessed by a reckless feeling I had never known before, the sensation that I myself did not matter any more... no one could call me to account for any action. For the first time I was free."
He thus become his double's scapegoat, and the events which follow enmesh him further in deceit and duplicity, which at first he considers to be in itself wrong, but quickly comes to regard as a means of basic survival,
"My sense of power was unbounded... I felt my bluff to be superb, and it must have worked... My self-confidence mounting every moment... I recalled my success the night before... little scraps of family history fell on my ear... what I gleaned would have to be sorted and sifted at leisure."
John learns about the idiosyncratic family he has been thrust amidst. He learns how his doppelgänger had influenced the destinies of these individuals, mercilessly twisting their lives to his own purpose. Gradually John begins to feel sympathy for the family who have accepted him, John, totally at face value. They have treated him variously with the emotions he has seemed to lack in his life so far; that is with love or hatred, but rarely with indifference. And as the novel proceeds we become aware that John has become emotionally committed to this family, within the space of seven days. He determines to use his family position as a tool, to influence both the workers in the factory, and "his" individual family member's lives for the better. Although a scapegoat, he is desperate to learn everything about the family intrigues, deceptions, jealousies and murders, both the events in the past and also those in the present.
Indeed there are at least two other contenders for the description of "scapegoat". Either the daughter or the wife could be seen in these terms. Marie-Noel seems over-eager to sacrifice herself for her father, as does Françoise, the Count's wife. The intensity of the little girl Marie-Noel's relationship with her father is clearly a reflection of that between the author, Daphne du Maurier, and her own father, the charismatic actor-manager Gerald du Maurier.
But Daphne du Maurier's descriptions of the little girl's religious fervour, as well as that of her aunt Blanche, serve well to heighten the tension at various points. It borders on the macabre, and makes the novel seem almost a gothic tale. All Daphne du Maurier's novels are tightly plotted, and this one, like "My Cousin Rachel" is full of suspense, coincidence, hints and dark secrets. The narrator continually suspects various members of his family - including his doppelgänger - of not only duplicity, but also of some evil deeds in the past. The whole novel is driven by the narrator's desperate desire for knowledge and understanding. He never reflects back on what has led him to this point, or what his life has been so far, but always concentrates on remaining undiscovered, and as the novel proceeds, on influencing the future of his "adopted family" for their good.
As with many of Daphne du Maurier's novels, there are so many elements of mystery that it is sometimes rather like reading a detective story. She often drops hints to the reader; clues carefully planted so that the reader is able to puzzle out the various roles and relationships before the viewpoint character John does. We suspect Renée's behaviour, for example, before John seems to have an inkling of why she seems so overly flirtatious and petulant. And we know who the woman Béla in the neighbouring village of Villars must be.
We see as the novel proceeds, a merging of the two John/Jeans,
"The feeling of power, of triumph that I was outwitting this little group of unsuspecting people had turned again to shame. It seemed to me now that I wanted Jean de Gué to have been a different sort of man. I did not want to discover at each step that he was worthless... I had exchanged my own negligible self for a worthless personality. He had the supreme advantage over me in that he had not cared. Or had he, after all? Was this why he had disappeared?"
And later,
"I knew that everything I had said or done had implicated me further, driven me deeper, bound me more closely still to that man whose body was not my body, whose mind was not my mind, whose thoughts and actions were a world apart, and yet whose inner substance was part of my nature, part of my secret self."
At this point just less than half-way through, the dream-like quality is notched up a step, and we realise that John is beginning to perceive another, darker, personality hidden within his own self, much as the character "Doctor Jekyll" did, but more subtly. Although Jekyll became subsumed and ultimately destroyed by the malignant influence of Hyde, John conversely seems to become more self-possessed and confident through his exploration of his darker self. He seems to become, in a sense, a more complete character, and his past a mere shadow.
There are recurring themes in this novel. Take the motif of a broken ornament, for instance. In "Rebecca", the episode where the new wife accidentally destroys a valuable china ornament given to her predecessor (Rebecca) on her marriage, and becoming a particular favourite, is powerfully symbolic. Here there is a similar event involving Anne-Marie and her mother, and a porcelain cat and dog,
"the only things I possess and value in this house."
Real-life dogs are another device. There are heart-stopping moments where the readers wonder whether the dog will recognise the supplanted character of John, in the place of César's master, the Count. In "Rebecca", the dog is suspicious for a long time of the new wife. In both cases the apprehension devolves on the viewpoint character. When César, the dog, finally accepts John, the author says,
"as he wagged his tail, I felt that I had scored a triumph."
The writing style too, feels very like Daphne du Maurier's other novels. There is much description to add colour and mood. On quite a few occasions she will use personification, or even the pathetic fallacy, to influence and further heighten the atmosphere, such as when,
"There was no break in the weeping sky to give direction."
At one point halfway through the novel, John feels that he is trapped in a corner. He feels impotent, and that whatever he does will not work; he is sinking further and further into a morass of his own making. The author describes the scene outside the house,
"Immediately beside me was a gargoyle's head, ears flattened, slits for eyes, the jutting lips forming a spout for rain. The leaded guttering was choked with leaves, and when rain came the whole would turn to mud and pour from the gargoyle's mouth in a turbid stream... seeping down the walls, swirling in the runways, choking and gurgling above the gargoyle head, driving sideways like arrows to the windows, stinging the panes... there would be no other sound for hour after hour... but the falling rain, and the flood of leaves and rubble through the gargoyle's mouth."
On another occasion, when the reader is finally about to learn the truth about the mysterious Maurice Duval,
"A fluttering sound by the window made me turn my head. It was a butterfly, the last of the long summer, woken by sunshine, seeking escape from the cobwebs that imprisoned it. I released the butterfly from its prison, and it hovered a moment on the sill, then settled once more amongst the cobwebs."
The novel hurtles to its conclusion, within its short compressed time-frame, as John desperately tries to right the wrongs as he sees them. Increasingly he is more committed, yet contrarily also more unsure,
"I wondered how much further I had to fall, and if the sense of shame that overwhelmed me was merely wallowing in darkness... I had played the coward long enough."
When the dog, César, drags him at reckless speed through the woods, it is as if John's own darker side is "dogging" him,
"I dragged myself to my feet, and with my hell-hound in tow started off once more through the vastness of the wood, feeling, as the poet did before me, that my companion would be with me through the nights and through the days, and down the arches of the years, and I should never be rid of him."
Even the structure of this one sentence gives the impression of hurtling towards doom. It does not let up; there is no break.
Towards the conclusion, the identification, or perhaps the confusion or melding of the two characters John/Jean, becomes ever more apparent. Here John refers to an event long past, but seems to also draws truths from it about his doppelgänger,
"I knew that what had happened on a dark night nearly fifteen years ago had not come about by chance but was something planned and done deliberately by a man without heart or feeling, who saw perhaps, in the other someone finer than himself possessing... all the qualities he himself lacked."
Yet he still fears discovery,
"...she knows at last. I've given myself away... But I was wrong."
"I could not ask forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat I could only bear the fault."
On the penultimate page, the transmogrification is complete,
"I walked on through darkness, undergrowth and moss, and now I had no present and no past, the self who stumbled had no heart and mind..."
"wishing to condemn him, it was as if it was the shadow I condemned, the man who had moved and spoken and acted in his place, and not Jean de Gué at all.
"It's no use... I'm not describing the man you know."
"You are... but you're describing yourself as well."
There was the fear. Which one of us was real?... It struck me suddenly that if I should now look at myself in a mirror I should see no reflection."
This is a disturbing tale, and it comes as no surprise to learn how emotionally drained and disturbed the author was on its completion. Events in Daphne du Maurier's own life were mirrored within the novel, and the author became increasingly jittery and confused as to which had actually happened first. When she wrote about the character Françoise needing a blood transfusion, in real life shortly afterwards, her daughter Tessa gave birth to a son who needed two blood transfusions. Her biographer Judith Cook says, of the odd coincidences and connections,
"Daphne began to find it all rather frightening."
And another biographer, Margaret Forster, reprints a letter, which Daphne du Maurier wrote in the same year of The Scapegoat's publication, 1957, just after her (Daphne's) husband Tommy had had a nervous breakdown. She herself was also on the verge of nervous collapse. In it, she talks about her novel,
"It is my story, and it is [his] also. We are both doubles. So it is with everyone. Every one of us has his, or her, dark side. Which is to overcome the other? This is the purpose of the book. And it ends, as you know, with the problem unsolved, except that the suggestion there, when I finished it, was that the two sides of that man's nature had to fuse together to give birth to a third, well balanced. Know Thyself. Can Moper, and can I, learn from this? I think we can ... but the dark side is not yet destroyed. We must be patient."
The ending she refers to comes across to the reader as quite weak. It provides neither the delicious twist we have learnt to expect from this author, nor the massive ambiguity she can do so well. Clearly from this letter though, it is what she intended, and perhaps had to wrestle with internally herself. Perhaps after all it is a fitting ending to a novel, in which she delved into John/Jean's - and possibly her own - psyche and explored other, imaginary selves. Did she explore mere fantasies, or their secret lives? Increasingly after this novel, she became intrigued by what she called the "dark side" of our natures, and some of her best short stories and novellas, explore this theme. "Don't Look Now", "The Blue Lenses", and "The Breakthrough", are examples. They too are macabre and strange, tense and chillingly unexpected tales, relying on the same speculative atmosphere of suspense and mystery, both disturbing and uncanny.
Note:
The Scapegoat was made into a film in 1959 starring Alec Guinness and Bette Davis. Additionally there is a 2012 film with Matthew Rhys which is based on the novel. However this is not set in France but in the UK in 1952 just before the coronation. Teacher John Standing, who has just lost his job, meets his doppelgänger Johnny Spence, a failed businessman. Thus none of the French associations are there, and in fact the story is entirely different, with different characters, different major and critical episodes - and even a different ending!
Further note:
Here are links to my reviews of other major novels by Daphne du Maurier:
Jamaica Inn
Rebecca
My Cousin Rachel
The House on the Strand
and one play:
The Years Between
The Scapegoat is reminiscent of novels such as, "The Prisoner of Zenda" and according to one of Daphne du Maurier's biographers, this rollicking adventure was a favourite story of Daphne's when she was a little girl. But it also owes a great deal to "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" as Daphne du Maurier also explores how two selves begin to feel as if they are part of the same person, the viewpoint character. In fact it is neither a straightforward adventure story as in Anthony Hope's tale, nor a dark study of two individuals; personalities within the same body, as in Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror story. It lies somewhere between the two, yet is also an unsettling tale, full of suspense, sometimes even having a dream-like quality.
Daphne du Maurier had the idea for The Scapegoat when she was in France in 1955, to research the lives of her ancestors, the Busson-Mathurins, who were glass-blowers. She did subsequently write the novel for which she intended this research, entitling it "The Glassblowers" (1963). But before writing it, she became distracted by a number of incidents that happened to her in France, which inspired the plot of The Scapegoat, published in 1957. She apparently wrote it at record speed, finishing within six months, and then collapsed with nervous exhaustion.
One of the triggers was that while out for a walk in a square in a French town, Daphne du Maurier saw a man who looked identical to someone she happened to know. According to one of her biographers, Judith Cook, she then watched a family scene through a window, and began to put the two incidents together in her feverish imagination. Typically, she began to wonder about the people; who they were, and what their secrets might be,
"She imagined herself suddenly transported into their midst, listening to their conversation, perhaps even becoming one of them,"
and so the seeds of The Scapegoat were sown.
Another instance provides part of the novel's setting. Houses often seem to take on a life of their own in Daphne du Maurier's novels. For example, "Manderley" in "Rebecca", seems to be imbued with as much of a presence - to be as much a character - as any of the actual people in the book. Indeed in her own life, she seems to have had an almost obsessive love for her "Menabilly" the house she rented for so many years. Here in France, as part of her research, Daphne du Maurier discovered a house that had belonged to one of her ancestors two hundred years earlier. Exploring the derelict buildings, she saw fragments of the glass they had made, still there, scattered by the wind. She used these impressions and experiences, drawing on them to create an atmospheric, dramatic suspense novel, set in France.
In The Scapegoat, her ancestral glass-blowing foundry became the failing business of the de Gué family. They in turn were depicted as more grand, in fact minor aristocrats, the Comte and Comtesse. And instead of writing herself into the story, the author took on the guise of a male narrator, one of five occasions in major novels when she did this.
The narrator, and viewpoint character, is an Englishman named John. At the start of the novel we learnt that John is dissatisfied with his life as a university lecturer, and tending to become depressed with what he sees as a futile life. It is evident that he is travelling through France, where he meets a man who eerily is his double in looks; a confident French count, Jean de Gué. Intrigued despite himself, John plays along with the Count's wishes, indulging in a night of drinking, and staying in an anonymous downbeat hotel overnight. On waking, he discovers that the man has disappeared, taking all John's own clothes and belongings, and leaving him to play the role of the "Comte Jean de Gué". Thus we have the novel's basic premise.
At first confused, John then becomes angry,
"filled with an intense desire to get away from that dingy, shabby hotel and never set eyes on it again, and as my anger rose and self-disgust took possession of me..."
And a little later, he describes being,
"possessed by a reckless feeling I had never known before, the sensation that I myself did not matter any more... no one could call me to account for any action. For the first time I was free."
He thus become his double's scapegoat, and the events which follow enmesh him further in deceit and duplicity, which at first he considers to be in itself wrong, but quickly comes to regard as a means of basic survival,
"My sense of power was unbounded... I felt my bluff to be superb, and it must have worked... My self-confidence mounting every moment... I recalled my success the night before... little scraps of family history fell on my ear... what I gleaned would have to be sorted and sifted at leisure."
John learns about the idiosyncratic family he has been thrust amidst. He learns how his doppelgänger had influenced the destinies of these individuals, mercilessly twisting their lives to his own purpose. Gradually John begins to feel sympathy for the family who have accepted him, John, totally at face value. They have treated him variously with the emotions he has seemed to lack in his life so far; that is with love or hatred, but rarely with indifference. And as the novel proceeds we become aware that John has become emotionally committed to this family, within the space of seven days. He determines to use his family position as a tool, to influence both the workers in the factory, and "his" individual family member's lives for the better. Although a scapegoat, he is desperate to learn everything about the family intrigues, deceptions, jealousies and murders, both the events in the past and also those in the present.
Indeed there are at least two other contenders for the description of "scapegoat". Either the daughter or the wife could be seen in these terms. Marie-Noel seems over-eager to sacrifice herself for her father, as does Françoise, the Count's wife. The intensity of the little girl Marie-Noel's relationship with her father is clearly a reflection of that between the author, Daphne du Maurier, and her own father, the charismatic actor-manager Gerald du Maurier.
But Daphne du Maurier's descriptions of the little girl's religious fervour, as well as that of her aunt Blanche, serve well to heighten the tension at various points. It borders on the macabre, and makes the novel seem almost a gothic tale. All Daphne du Maurier's novels are tightly plotted, and this one, like "My Cousin Rachel" is full of suspense, coincidence, hints and dark secrets. The narrator continually suspects various members of his family - including his doppelgänger - of not only duplicity, but also of some evil deeds in the past. The whole novel is driven by the narrator's desperate desire for knowledge and understanding. He never reflects back on what has led him to this point, or what his life has been so far, but always concentrates on remaining undiscovered, and as the novel proceeds, on influencing the future of his "adopted family" for their good.
As with many of Daphne du Maurier's novels, there are so many elements of mystery that it is sometimes rather like reading a detective story. She often drops hints to the reader; clues carefully planted so that the reader is able to puzzle out the various roles and relationships before the viewpoint character John does. We suspect Renée's behaviour, for example, before John seems to have an inkling of why she seems so overly flirtatious and petulant. And we know who the woman Béla in the neighbouring village of Villars must be.
We see as the novel proceeds, a merging of the two John/Jeans,
"The feeling of power, of triumph that I was outwitting this little group of unsuspecting people had turned again to shame. It seemed to me now that I wanted Jean de Gué to have been a different sort of man. I did not want to discover at each step that he was worthless... I had exchanged my own negligible self for a worthless personality. He had the supreme advantage over me in that he had not cared. Or had he, after all? Was this why he had disappeared?"
And later,
"I knew that everything I had said or done had implicated me further, driven me deeper, bound me more closely still to that man whose body was not my body, whose mind was not my mind, whose thoughts and actions were a world apart, and yet whose inner substance was part of my nature, part of my secret self."
At this point just less than half-way through, the dream-like quality is notched up a step, and we realise that John is beginning to perceive another, darker, personality hidden within his own self, much as the character "Doctor Jekyll" did, but more subtly. Although Jekyll became subsumed and ultimately destroyed by the malignant influence of Hyde, John conversely seems to become more self-possessed and confident through his exploration of his darker self. He seems to become, in a sense, a more complete character, and his past a mere shadow.
There are recurring themes in this novel. Take the motif of a broken ornament, for instance. In "Rebecca", the episode where the new wife accidentally destroys a valuable china ornament given to her predecessor (Rebecca) on her marriage, and becoming a particular favourite, is powerfully symbolic. Here there is a similar event involving Anne-Marie and her mother, and a porcelain cat and dog,
"the only things I possess and value in this house."
Real-life dogs are another device. There are heart-stopping moments where the readers wonder whether the dog will recognise the supplanted character of John, in the place of César's master, the Count. In "Rebecca", the dog is suspicious for a long time of the new wife. In both cases the apprehension devolves on the viewpoint character. When César, the dog, finally accepts John, the author says,
"as he wagged his tail, I felt that I had scored a triumph."
The writing style too, feels very like Daphne du Maurier's other novels. There is much description to add colour and mood. On quite a few occasions she will use personification, or even the pathetic fallacy, to influence and further heighten the atmosphere, such as when,
"There was no break in the weeping sky to give direction."
At one point halfway through the novel, John feels that he is trapped in a corner. He feels impotent, and that whatever he does will not work; he is sinking further and further into a morass of his own making. The author describes the scene outside the house,
"Immediately beside me was a gargoyle's head, ears flattened, slits for eyes, the jutting lips forming a spout for rain. The leaded guttering was choked with leaves, and when rain came the whole would turn to mud and pour from the gargoyle's mouth in a turbid stream... seeping down the walls, swirling in the runways, choking and gurgling above the gargoyle head, driving sideways like arrows to the windows, stinging the panes... there would be no other sound for hour after hour... but the falling rain, and the flood of leaves and rubble through the gargoyle's mouth."
On another occasion, when the reader is finally about to learn the truth about the mysterious Maurice Duval,
"A fluttering sound by the window made me turn my head. It was a butterfly, the last of the long summer, woken by sunshine, seeking escape from the cobwebs that imprisoned it. I released the butterfly from its prison, and it hovered a moment on the sill, then settled once more amongst the cobwebs."
The novel hurtles to its conclusion, within its short compressed time-frame, as John desperately tries to right the wrongs as he sees them. Increasingly he is more committed, yet contrarily also more unsure,
"I wondered how much further I had to fall, and if the sense of shame that overwhelmed me was merely wallowing in darkness... I had played the coward long enough."
When the dog, César, drags him at reckless speed through the woods, it is as if John's own darker side is "dogging" him,
"I dragged myself to my feet, and with my hell-hound in tow started off once more through the vastness of the wood, feeling, as the poet did before me, that my companion would be with me through the nights and through the days, and down the arches of the years, and I should never be rid of him."
Even the structure of this one sentence gives the impression of hurtling towards doom. It does not let up; there is no break.
Towards the conclusion, the identification, or perhaps the confusion or melding of the two characters John/Jean, becomes ever more apparent. Here John refers to an event long past, but seems to also draws truths from it about his doppelgänger,
"I knew that what had happened on a dark night nearly fifteen years ago had not come about by chance but was something planned and done deliberately by a man without heart or feeling, who saw perhaps, in the other someone finer than himself possessing... all the qualities he himself lacked."
Yet he still fears discovery,
"...she knows at last. I've given myself away... But I was wrong."
"I could not ask forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat I could only bear the fault."
On the penultimate page, the transmogrification is complete,
"I walked on through darkness, undergrowth and moss, and now I had no present and no past, the self who stumbled had no heart and mind..."
"wishing to condemn him, it was as if it was the shadow I condemned, the man who had moved and spoken and acted in his place, and not Jean de Gué at all.
"It's no use... I'm not describing the man you know."
"You are... but you're describing yourself as well."
There was the fear. Which one of us was real?... It struck me suddenly that if I should now look at myself in a mirror I should see no reflection."
This is a disturbing tale, and it comes as no surprise to learn how emotionally drained and disturbed the author was on its completion. Events in Daphne du Maurier's own life were mirrored within the novel, and the author became increasingly jittery and confused as to which had actually happened first. When she wrote about the character Françoise needing a blood transfusion, in real life shortly afterwards, her daughter Tessa gave birth to a son who needed two blood transfusions. Her biographer Judith Cook says, of the odd coincidences and connections,
"Daphne began to find it all rather frightening."
And another biographer, Margaret Forster, reprints a letter, which Daphne du Maurier wrote in the same year of The Scapegoat's publication, 1957, just after her (Daphne's) husband Tommy had had a nervous breakdown. She herself was also on the verge of nervous collapse. In it, she talks about her novel,
"It is my story, and it is [his] also. We are both doubles. So it is with everyone. Every one of us has his, or her, dark side. Which is to overcome the other? This is the purpose of the book. And it ends, as you know, with the problem unsolved, except that the suggestion there, when I finished it, was that the two sides of that man's nature had to fuse together to give birth to a third, well balanced. Know Thyself. Can Moper, and can I, learn from this? I think we can ... but the dark side is not yet destroyed. We must be patient."
The ending she refers to comes across to the reader as quite weak. It provides neither the delicious twist we have learnt to expect from this author, nor the massive ambiguity she can do so well. Clearly from this letter though, it is what she intended, and perhaps had to wrestle with internally herself. Perhaps after all it is a fitting ending to a novel, in which she delved into John/Jean's - and possibly her own - psyche and explored other, imaginary selves. Did she explore mere fantasies, or their secret lives? Increasingly after this novel, she became intrigued by what she called the "dark side" of our natures, and some of her best short stories and novellas, explore this theme. "Don't Look Now", "The Blue Lenses", and "The Breakthrough", are examples. They too are macabre and strange, tense and chillingly unexpected tales, relying on the same speculative atmosphere of suspense and mystery, both disturbing and uncanny.
Note:
The Scapegoat was made into a film in 1959 starring Alec Guinness and Bette Davis. Additionally there is a 2012 film with Matthew Rhys which is based on the novel. However this is not set in France but in the UK in 1952 just before the coronation. Teacher John Standing, who has just lost his job, meets his doppelgänger Johnny Spence, a failed businessman. Thus none of the French associations are there, and in fact the story is entirely different, with different characters, different major and critical episodes - and even a different ending!
Further note:
Here are links to my reviews of other major novels by Daphne du Maurier:
Jamaica Inn
Rebecca
My Cousin Rachel
The House on the Strand
and one play:
The Years Between
January 3, 2021
Yet another Daphne du Maurier book that I struggled... to put down! French language academic John is astonished to bump into his exact doppelganger at a provincial French train station.
He's further astonished to wake up (after a night out), the next morning and find that his double, Frenchman Jean, has disappeared with John's identity! With little other choice John returns to Jean's home and finds himself taking over Jean's life! A life with a precocious daughter, a heavily pregnant wife, lots of adultery, an ailing mother, unhappy siblings,a failing company and a village still struggling with the demons of a NAZI occupied past and how they dealt with the collaborators 15 years ago.
Daphne weaved a compelling tale from the off, from the mystery of the identical men to the shit-show that Jean's life is; but where she excels is the intricacies of the extended family's life and history; the multiple distinct voices and relationships with Jean, and then John, and just overall taking a superb suspense thriller and making it much more, very much more! 9 out of 12.
A GIF to sum up how I feel about du Maurier?
He's further astonished to wake up (after a night out), the next morning and find that his double, Frenchman Jean, has disappeared with John's identity! With little other choice John returns to Jean's home and finds himself taking over Jean's life! A life with a precocious daughter, a heavily pregnant wife, lots of adultery, an ailing mother, unhappy siblings,a failing company and a village still struggling with the demons of a NAZI occupied past and how they dealt with the collaborators 15 years ago.
Daphne weaved a compelling tale from the off, from the mystery of the identical men to the shit-show that Jean's life is; but where she excels is the intricacies of the extended family's life and history; the multiple distinct voices and relationships with Jean, and then John, and just overall taking a superb suspense thriller and making it much more, very much more! 9 out of 12.
A GIF to sum up how I feel about du Maurier?
January 16, 2021
I've often fantasized about escaping my own life and transplanting somewhere else entirely. Better yet, trade places with my dog, Zelda. Du Maurier explores that idea here, through the characters of John (the English man) and Jean (the French man) who meet by chance one night and discover that while they might be strangers, they look exactly alike. Time for the old switcheroo?
John, our narrator, is a lonely academic, someone who always felt like an observer rather than a participant in life. Jean, on the other hand, describes himself as a "family man" who evidently doesn't enjoy the title and is only too happy to jump ship.
The story follows John, who tries his best to live his doppelgänger's life without making too many missteps or being discovered as a fraud. Turns out, the life he is to assume is a complicated one. Suddenly, he's a man with a depressed wife, a crumbling chateau, a failing glass foundry, a mistress in town, a mistress in the house, a sister who hasn't spoken to him in fifteen years, a troubled daughter and mysteriously ill mother. Plus a dark history that no one dares to speak of.
John is truly a scapegoat, held responsible for acts committed by another man:
I could not ask for forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault.
There's a fair amount of suspension of disbelief that is required on the part of the reader, but du Maurier is so skilled at engaging us, there were very few times that I stopped or scratched my head. I was only too happy to be along for the ride. The way she slowly reveals information is well timed, a natural unfolding.
One thing I noticed and found surprising is that the book is less gothic than the other novels of hers that I've read (Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel). There are fewer of the traditional gothic tropes on display (the house as a main character, ghosts or dead who preoccupy the minds of the characters, letters received from people long dead, animals who meet bad ends, dark eroticism). I'd say this book is more of a mystery, if I had to classify it.
The ending is also surprising - I didn't see it coming. Again, less gothic, but satisfying (although I must say, it left me quite curious as to what followed the final page). In the end, it's another spellbinding story woven by a truly gifted writer. A story that examines identity and fate in a thoughtful way, written in the author's elegant but provoking pen.
(I still want to trade places with Zelda, by the way.)
John, our narrator, is a lonely academic, someone who always felt like an observer rather than a participant in life. Jean, on the other hand, describes himself as a "family man" who evidently doesn't enjoy the title and is only too happy to jump ship.
The story follows John, who tries his best to live his doppelgänger's life without making too many missteps or being discovered as a fraud. Turns out, the life he is to assume is a complicated one. Suddenly, he's a man with a depressed wife, a crumbling chateau, a failing glass foundry, a mistress in town, a mistress in the house, a sister who hasn't spoken to him in fifteen years, a troubled daughter and mysteriously ill mother. Plus a dark history that no one dares to speak of.
John is truly a scapegoat, held responsible for acts committed by another man:
I could not ask for forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault.
There's a fair amount of suspension of disbelief that is required on the part of the reader, but du Maurier is so skilled at engaging us, there were very few times that I stopped or scratched my head. I was only too happy to be along for the ride. The way she slowly reveals information is well timed, a natural unfolding.
One thing I noticed and found surprising is that the book is less gothic than the other novels of hers that I've read (Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel). There are fewer of the traditional gothic tropes on display (the house as a main character, ghosts or dead who preoccupy the minds of the characters, letters received from people long dead, animals who meet bad ends, dark eroticism). I'd say this book is more of a mystery, if I had to classify it.
The ending is also surprising - I didn't see it coming. Again, less gothic, but satisfying (although I must say, it left me quite curious as to what followed the final page). In the end, it's another spellbinding story woven by a truly gifted writer. A story that examines identity and fate in a thoughtful way, written in the author's elegant but provoking pen.
(I still want to trade places with Zelda, by the way.)
September 25, 2024
I must admit to feeling a little nervous about taking on this book. Novels of 'a certain age’ really aren’t my thing, I seem to struggle with everything about them. If it's not the stilted or overblown language, it is a plot that feels horribly tame and dated. If there’s a phobia attached to reading these books, then I have it. I’d never read a book by Daphne du Maurier before, so I wasn’t sure quite which I'd get - the overblown or the stilted - but I was confident the plot would be asinine. And guess what, I was right! But I was also wrong…
John, a discontented English academic travelling in France, meets an unhappy Frenchman who, by chance, is his doppelganger. They share a drink and then a few more. Before long, John has passed out, and when he wakes, he realises that his identity has been stolen – Jean, his Gallic lookalike, has run off with his clothes, wallet, and car. This is the point where the story takes a fairly unlikely turn (if it hadn’t already) in that John decides to live Jean’s life, moving in with his family and picking up the loose threads of the life Jean had left behind. Strange, unlikely… both? Yes. But stranger still is the fact that I slowly became drawn into the story and significantly invested in the outcome.
The language is rich and hugely descriptive – all in a good way – and as the tale gallops along more and more problems seem to crawl out of the woodwork. Can John possibly add value here? Can he right the wrongs and solve some of the problems? He is certainly going to have his hands full as there is much to do if he is to right this particular ship.
Probably some time around halfway through the book, I realised that I’d put aside all my concerns regarding the realism of the story in favour of just enjoying the tale. From this point on, it was easy – and hugely enjoyable. As I approached the end, I started to worry whether du Maurier would land a bail out happy ending on her readers, even though I couldn’t really work out what this would look like. I needn’t have worried. The story was tied up brilliantly, and in a way, I couldn’t have foreseen.
Memo to myself: don’t be so dismissive of books written before I was born – I can learn much from them and the medicine to cure my phobia is simple enough, seek out my next one PDQ.
John, a discontented English academic travelling in France, meets an unhappy Frenchman who, by chance, is his doppelganger. They share a drink and then a few more. Before long, John has passed out, and when he wakes, he realises that his identity has been stolen – Jean, his Gallic lookalike, has run off with his clothes, wallet, and car. This is the point where the story takes a fairly unlikely turn (if it hadn’t already) in that John decides to live Jean’s life, moving in with his family and picking up the loose threads of the life Jean had left behind. Strange, unlikely… both? Yes. But stranger still is the fact that I slowly became drawn into the story and significantly invested in the outcome.
The language is rich and hugely descriptive – all in a good way – and as the tale gallops along more and more problems seem to crawl out of the woodwork. Can John possibly add value here? Can he right the wrongs and solve some of the problems? He is certainly going to have his hands full as there is much to do if he is to right this particular ship.
Probably some time around halfway through the book, I realised that I’d put aside all my concerns regarding the realism of the story in favour of just enjoying the tale. From this point on, it was easy – and hugely enjoyable. As I approached the end, I started to worry whether du Maurier would land a bail out happy ending on her readers, even though I couldn’t really work out what this would look like. I needn’t have worried. The story was tied up brilliantly, and in a way, I couldn’t have foreseen.
Memo to myself: don’t be so dismissive of books written before I was born – I can learn much from them and the medicine to cure my phobia is simple enough, seek out my next one PDQ.
February 6, 2017
4.5 stars
I have read several of Daphne Du Maurier's books and loved every single one. Rebecca is my favorite but this book came very close to it.
I will be reading more of her books.
What would you do if you came face to face with yourself? That's what happens to John, an Englishman on holiday in France, when he meets his exact double - a Frenchman called Jean de Gue. John agrees to go for a drink with Jean but falls into a drunken stupor and wakes up in a hotel room to find that Jean has disappeared, taking John's clothes and identity documents with him!
When Jean's chauffeur arrives at the hotel, John is unable to convince him of what has happened - and ends up accompanying the chauffeur to Jean de Gue's chateau, where the Frenchman's unsuspecting family assume that he really is Jean de Gue. Naturally, they expect him to continue running the family glass-making business and arranging shooting parties - things that John has absolutely no experience in. Before long, it starts to become obvious that Jean is using John as a scapegoat; Jean's family and business are both in a mess and he wants someone else to have to deal with them.
Throughout the book, I was forced to revise my opinions once or twice about what was really going on. If everything in the book is supposed to be taken literally, then we need to suspend belief at times: could two men really be so identical that even their mother, wife and daughter can't tell the difference? There is also another way to interpret the story, one which goes deeper into the psychology of identity - I won't say any more about that here, but if you read the book this theory may occur to you too. I found the book very thought provoking.
As usual, du Maurier's writing is wonderfully atmospheric. She has a way of making you feel as though you're actually there in the hotel room in Le Mans, the grounds of Jean de Gue's estate in the French countryside and Bela's antique shop in the town of Villars.
When John first arrives at the de Gue chateau, every member of the household is a stranger to him but we (and John) are given enough clues to gradually figure out who each person is and what their relationship is to Jean de Gue. From the neglected pregnant wife and the hostile elder sister to the resentful younger brother and the religious ten-year-old daughter, every character is well-drawn and memorable.
Another thing I love about Daphne du Maurier's writing is her ability to always keep the reader guessing right to the final page (and sometimes afterwards too). This was a fascinating and unusual story.
I have read several of Daphne Du Maurier's books and loved every single one. Rebecca is my favorite but this book came very close to it.
I will be reading more of her books.
What would you do if you came face to face with yourself? That's what happens to John, an Englishman on holiday in France, when he meets his exact double - a Frenchman called Jean de Gue. John agrees to go for a drink with Jean but falls into a drunken stupor and wakes up in a hotel room to find that Jean has disappeared, taking John's clothes and identity documents with him!
When Jean's chauffeur arrives at the hotel, John is unable to convince him of what has happened - and ends up accompanying the chauffeur to Jean de Gue's chateau, where the Frenchman's unsuspecting family assume that he really is Jean de Gue. Naturally, they expect him to continue running the family glass-making business and arranging shooting parties - things that John has absolutely no experience in. Before long, it starts to become obvious that Jean is using John as a scapegoat; Jean's family and business are both in a mess and he wants someone else to have to deal with them.
Throughout the book, I was forced to revise my opinions once or twice about what was really going on. If everything in the book is supposed to be taken literally, then we need to suspend belief at times: could two men really be so identical that even their mother, wife and daughter can't tell the difference? There is also another way to interpret the story, one which goes deeper into the psychology of identity - I won't say any more about that here, but if you read the book this theory may occur to you too. I found the book very thought provoking.
As usual, du Maurier's writing is wonderfully atmospheric. She has a way of making you feel as though you're actually there in the hotel room in Le Mans, the grounds of Jean de Gue's estate in the French countryside and Bela's antique shop in the town of Villars.
When John first arrives at the de Gue chateau, every member of the household is a stranger to him but we (and John) are given enough clues to gradually figure out who each person is and what their relationship is to Jean de Gue. From the neglected pregnant wife and the hostile elder sister to the resentful younger brother and the religious ten-year-old daughter, every character is well-drawn and memorable.
Another thing I love about Daphne du Maurier's writing is her ability to always keep the reader guessing right to the final page (and sometimes afterwards too). This was a fascinating and unusual story.
February 18, 2020
If you have ever read any of Daphne du Maurier’s novels, you will immediately recognize what I mean when I say the narrator here is another of her identity-free individuals. Like the new Mrs. De Winter in Rebecca or the tour guide brother in Flight of the Falcon, this narrator is a person without any sense of importance, sense of self or sense of his own value. He is so unloved and disconnected that he can assume another man’s life and involve himself immediately in the other man’s world to the point of burying himself inside the other man’s skin.
A scapegoat: a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others. What an inspired title for Daphne du Maurier’s thrilling novel of exchanged identity. When John, an Englishman whose area of expertise is France, meets his doppelganger, the Comte Jean de Gue, he finds himself unexpectedly tricked into trading places. He goes from having no life or ties to being responsible for the complexities of a chateaux and the lives that revolve around it, and he finds out that the life he has assumed is one of a dubious and sometimes cruel individual.
"One had no right to play with other people's lives. One should not interfere with their emotions. A word, a look, a smile, a frown, did something to another human being, waking response or aversion, and a web was woven which had no beginning and no end, spreading outward and inward too, merging, entangling, so that the struggle of one depended on the struggle of the other."
As our narrator uncovers the secrets of Jean’s life, he begins to insert his own sensibilities into the lives he controls. But does he see these people as they are, or does he supply his on version of them? Does he help them, or does he simply confuse and disrupt their lives? What would they think if they knew he was just a stranger playing at being their son, husband, father, brother, lover or master? And, what does he discover about himself along the way?
Nobody writes romantic gothic fiction like du Maurier. She knows how to make something subtle important. She has great command of the psychological thriller and weaves her tales to that you are never far from the edge of your seat. She writes descriptions that turn buildings into characters, and characters that emerge as real people.
If you have never read du Maurier, you are missing one of the great writers. If you have not read this book, you are missing a treat.
A scapegoat: a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others. What an inspired title for Daphne du Maurier’s thrilling novel of exchanged identity. When John, an Englishman whose area of expertise is France, meets his doppelganger, the Comte Jean de Gue, he finds himself unexpectedly tricked into trading places. He goes from having no life or ties to being responsible for the complexities of a chateaux and the lives that revolve around it, and he finds out that the life he has assumed is one of a dubious and sometimes cruel individual.
"One had no right to play with other people's lives. One should not interfere with their emotions. A word, a look, a smile, a frown, did something to another human being, waking response or aversion, and a web was woven which had no beginning and no end, spreading outward and inward too, merging, entangling, so that the struggle of one depended on the struggle of the other."
As our narrator uncovers the secrets of Jean’s life, he begins to insert his own sensibilities into the lives he controls. But does he see these people as they are, or does he supply his on version of them? Does he help them, or does he simply confuse and disrupt their lives? What would they think if they knew he was just a stranger playing at being their son, husband, father, brother, lover or master? And, what does he discover about himself along the way?
Nobody writes romantic gothic fiction like du Maurier. She knows how to make something subtle important. She has great command of the psychological thriller and weaves her tales to that you are never far from the edge of your seat. She writes descriptions that turn buildings into characters, and characters that emerge as real people.
If you have never read du Maurier, you are missing one of the great writers. If you have not read this book, you are missing a treat.
June 7, 2025
The hero is an English history professor, depressed and disillusioned, on vacation in Le Mans. He is lost and thinks of retiring to the trap. But at the station, he meets a man who resembles him. After a night of drinking, he finds himself having to take on the identity of this man, an earl caught in financial and domestic trouble. In a few months, he will straighten out the collapsing factory, restore meaning to his brother's life, and taste the sweetness of his daughter's affection and the tenderness of his mistress.
It is an old-fashioned, psychologically excavated classic in its almost fantastic organization. I do not reveal the end in other novels or short stories by Daphne du Maurier because there is a final twist.
So, despite the somewhat dated side of the context (the declining French aristocracy), the clichés (the mistress with a big heart, the runner-up squire), the improbabilities (the teacher probably knows the French language well, but to the point of giving the change ??), I liked this novel.
It is an old-fashioned, psychologically excavated classic in its almost fantastic organization. I do not reveal the end in other novels or short stories by Daphne du Maurier because there is a final twist.
So, despite the somewhat dated side of the context (the declining French aristocracy), the clichés (the mistress with a big heart, the runner-up squire), the improbabilities (the teacher probably knows the French language well, but to the point of giving the change ??), I liked this novel.
October 23, 2025
Новата 2021 година вече е щедра към мен - насладих се на прекрасните стил и история на Дафни дю Морие!
"Изкупителна жертва" ни дава чудесен изказ и елегантно представяне на историята - приятно съм изненадан от богатството на езика използван от авторката! Която аз за съжаление с години съм отбягвал, погрешно предположил, че творчеството ѝ се родее с това на небезизвестната Розамунде Пилхнер...
Този роман е толкова добре написан, че когато се потопиш в него, с лекота и удоволствие усещаш красотата на ранното есенно утро във френската провинция и няма как да не заобичаш всичките герои, съживени от силата на дю Морие!
P.S. Преводът на Весела Прошкова е отличен! Ще потърся и други книги на писателката в най-близко време!
Има и два филма, ще гледам поне един от тях.
"Изкупителна жертва" ни дава чудесен изказ и елегантно представяне на историята - приятно съм изненадан от богатството на езика използван от авторката! Която аз за съжаление с години съм отбягвал, погрешно предположил, че творчеството ѝ се родее с това на небезизвестната Розамунде Пилхнер...
Този роман е толкова добре написан, че когато се потопиш в него, с лекота и удоволствие усещаш красотата на ранното есенно утро във френската провинция и няма как да не заобичаш всичките герои, съживени от силата на дю Морие!
P.S. Преводът на Весела Прошкова е отличен! Ще потърся и други книги на писателката в най-близко време!
Има и два филма, ще гледам поне един от тях.
August 17, 2020
I did not see the ending coming. I thought I knew how it was going to end…Dame du Maurier it appeared to me was right near the end leading me and other readers down the primrose path to the denouement. Not so fast. 😮
I had read two other books by Dame Daphne du Maurier and very much liked them: Rebecca (1938) and My Cousin Rachel (1951). I had never heard of this book (originally published in 1957) BUT SEE BELOW …until several months ago it got a favorable review from a GR friend. So I put it on my TBR list…got it from the library and devoured it in one day. The edition I got was by the University of Pennsylvania Press, and it was already in its 5th printing. I wonder why a university press would be publishing Daphne du Maurier…on the back cover it was stated that The House on the Strand was also available via the university press.
The basic plot is that a Frenchman in his early 40s runs into another man, an Englishman in his early 40s, who is a body double of him (doppelgänger). By clever means and not to his liking the Englishman finds himself forced to impersonate the Frenchman and inherits the Frenchman’s life and family…a brother and a sister and a mother and they’re all messed up to varying degrees, and a wife, and she is unhappy because her husband has been essentially ignoring her and only married her for a potential buttload of money if she produces a son for him (complicated legal arrangement regarding her dowry). Oh and that’s just the beginning…he inherits a precocious 11-year old daughter, a sister-in-law (who he is having an affair with), a valet, a mistress, a glass factory that is floundering… And given this is a du Maurier novel there have been sinister things happening well into the past…that this Englishman now fake Frenchman is going to have to deal with. Perhaps vaguely reminiscent of ‘Heaven Can Wait’, a film from the late 1970s starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (and a gaggle of other good actors)…although that was a comedy/love story when push comes to shove. Not a whole lot to laugh at in this novel. In fact nothing really.
Which doesn’t mean this novel is not good — I think it’s pretty damn good. And I am glad I read it. 😊
It held my interest pretty much throughout, although maybe about two-thirds of the way through my interest flagged but then accelerated again — just a minor bump in the road. Otherwise I think I would have rated it as ‘5’ rather than ‘4’…but in my rating system a ‘4’ is “a memorable read and if there is anything else the author has written I would be quite interested in it”, thank you very much.
😢
I just looked at an Excel database I have kept for some 15 years or so and have discovered I read this in 2001. How could I forget reading this book??? It’s like I read it for the first time today! In fact you can see from my review above I was assuming this was the first tine I had laid eyes on this book. I know some books are certainly worth reading two times…but yeesh. Maybe I should be taking a buttload of Prevogen. After all, it contains an ingredient found in jellyfish. Or so the ad says…I wonder if jellyfish have good memories? Apparently they have better memories than I.🤨
Reviews:
From a blog site: https://thelitedit.com/the-scapegoat-...
From a sci-fi newsletter (a very good review): https://www.tor.com/2010/09/12/youre-...
https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/b...
This was made into a movie in 1959 starring Alec Guinness and Bette Davis. I am not sure it was a hit (actually this site [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sca...] said it lost over $300,000 when all was said and done). Reinforces the truism that the book is typically better than the movie. Although it was based on the book, the screenplay was written by Gore Vidal and Robert Hamer.
I had read two other books by Dame Daphne du Maurier and very much liked them: Rebecca (1938) and My Cousin Rachel (1951). I had never heard of this book (originally published in 1957) BUT SEE BELOW …until several months ago it got a favorable review from a GR friend. So I put it on my TBR list…got it from the library and devoured it in one day. The edition I got was by the University of Pennsylvania Press, and it was already in its 5th printing. I wonder why a university press would be publishing Daphne du Maurier…on the back cover it was stated that The House on the Strand was also available via the university press.
The basic plot is that a Frenchman in his early 40s runs into another man, an Englishman in his early 40s, who is a body double of him (doppelgänger). By clever means and not to his liking the Englishman finds himself forced to impersonate the Frenchman and inherits the Frenchman’s life and family…a brother and a sister and a mother and they’re all messed up to varying degrees, and a wife, and she is unhappy because her husband has been essentially ignoring her and only married her for a potential buttload of money if she produces a son for him (complicated legal arrangement regarding her dowry). Oh and that’s just the beginning…he inherits a precocious 11-year old daughter, a sister-in-law (who he is having an affair with), a valet, a mistress, a glass factory that is floundering… And given this is a du Maurier novel there have been sinister things happening well into the past…that this Englishman now fake Frenchman is going to have to deal with. Perhaps vaguely reminiscent of ‘Heaven Can Wait’, a film from the late 1970s starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (and a gaggle of other good actors)…although that was a comedy/love story when push comes to shove. Not a whole lot to laugh at in this novel. In fact nothing really.
Which doesn’t mean this novel is not good — I think it’s pretty damn good. And I am glad I read it. 😊
It held my interest pretty much throughout, although maybe about two-thirds of the way through my interest flagged but then accelerated again — just a minor bump in the road. Otherwise I think I would have rated it as ‘5’ rather than ‘4’…but in my rating system a ‘4’ is “a memorable read and if there is anything else the author has written I would be quite interested in it”, thank you very much.
😢
I just looked at an Excel database I have kept for some 15 years or so and have discovered I read this in 2001. How could I forget reading this book??? It’s like I read it for the first time today! In fact you can see from my review above I was assuming this was the first tine I had laid eyes on this book. I know some books are certainly worth reading two times…but yeesh. Maybe I should be taking a buttload of Prevogen. After all, it contains an ingredient found in jellyfish. Or so the ad says…I wonder if jellyfish have good memories? Apparently they have better memories than I.🤨
Reviews:
From a blog site: https://thelitedit.com/the-scapegoat-...
From a sci-fi newsletter (a very good review): https://www.tor.com/2010/09/12/youre-...
https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/b...
This was made into a movie in 1959 starring Alec Guinness and Bette Davis. I am not sure it was a hit (actually this site [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sca...] said it lost over $300,000 when all was said and done). Reinforces the truism that the book is typically better than the movie. Although it was based on the book, the screenplay was written by Gore Vidal and Robert Hamer.
September 21, 2018
No idea why this was showing as I had rated this book when I haven't even finished it.
Gee, I got so many likes when I was just having a whinge, I don't know why I'm bothering to write a review! 😁
Well, I do know why. This is one of the best books I've read this year - it is definitely the best fiction that is not a reread.
I read it as a straight doppelganger story and still found it wonderfully complex - & du Maurier's skilled writing made me believe the unbelievable. But some of the other people doing this group read (in the Retro Reads Group) have found deeper, more spiritual & philosophical meaning in the writing and I really want to sit down and read this book all over again.
I'm amazed. I'm gobsmacked. this is how classic fiction should make one feel. To be trusted with making your own interpretation by a writer is such a gift.
Gee, I got so many likes when I was just having a whinge, I don't know why I'm bothering to write a review! 😁
Well, I do know why. This is one of the best books I've read this year - it is definitely the best fiction that is not a reread.
I read it as a straight doppelganger story and still found it wonderfully complex - & du Maurier's skilled writing made me believe the unbelievable. But some of the other people doing this group read (in the Retro Reads Group) have found deeper, more spiritual & philosophical meaning in the writing and I really want to sit down and read this book all over again.
I'm amazed. I'm gobsmacked. this is how classic fiction should make one feel. To be trusted with making your own interpretation by a writer is such a gift.
December 9, 2022
Having enjoyed many Daphne du Maurier books, The Scapegoat comes as a big disappointment. The premise of a stolen identity and the deception that followed sounded fantastic and was too inviting to pass. But now, I wish I had.
The story is based on a good premise - no argument there. But, the problem was the lack of plot development. It starts well, with an unassuming Englishman falling victim to stolen identity, and he is being forced to play a role of deception. But, when the story of deception begins, instead of it being suspenseful and intriguing, the whole structure collapses with the story stepping onto unrealistic grounds and taking a monotonous path. There was ample material for du Maurier to develop the plot, put in some twists and turns, and make the story more engaging and interesting. Instead, she lets it fall into monotony with the dull narrative of the story from the victim, John's, point of view. There was some building-up towards the end, but, any effect it might have on the story was destroyed by the anti-climactic end. And so, I had nothing but to accept that I couldn't enjoy the story.
Also, what I felt about the story was quite augmented by its characters. I've come across many dislikable characters in Daphne du Maurier's books, but I've not met a bunch like in here, not quite. It's not so much dislike that I felt, but a sense that they are somehow unrealistic - the whole of them, including the protagonist. This sense of unreality worked negatively at forming any connection with them. I made an effort to feel some sympathy towards them, just to anchor myself to the story, and succeeded for a time, to direct them towards Francoise (Jean's wife) and Blanche (his sister) who were both utterly wronged by the true Jean de Gue. But in truth, I couldn't connect with any of them enough to be drawn into the story.
It is frustrating to feel this way about a book by an author, whose books I've esteemed so far, and every negative feeling is penned here with a very heavy heart. But the truth is, I didn't feel any emotion over it. If I did feel anything, it was only relief at finishing the book, so I could move on to something more interesting and forget about this bitter disappointment.
The story is based on a good premise - no argument there. But, the problem was the lack of plot development. It starts well, with an unassuming Englishman falling victim to stolen identity, and he is being forced to play a role of deception. But, when the story of deception begins, instead of it being suspenseful and intriguing, the whole structure collapses with the story stepping onto unrealistic grounds and taking a monotonous path. There was ample material for du Maurier to develop the plot, put in some twists and turns, and make the story more engaging and interesting. Instead, she lets it fall into monotony with the dull narrative of the story from the victim, John's, point of view. There was some building-up towards the end, but, any effect it might have on the story was destroyed by the anti-climactic end. And so, I had nothing but to accept that I couldn't enjoy the story.
Also, what I felt about the story was quite augmented by its characters. I've come across many dislikable characters in Daphne du Maurier's books, but I've not met a bunch like in here, not quite. It's not so much dislike that I felt, but a sense that they are somehow unrealistic - the whole of them, including the protagonist. This sense of unreality worked negatively at forming any connection with them. I made an effort to feel some sympathy towards them, just to anchor myself to the story, and succeeded for a time, to direct them towards Francoise (Jean's wife) and Blanche (his sister) who were both utterly wronged by the true Jean de Gue. But in truth, I couldn't connect with any of them enough to be drawn into the story.
It is frustrating to feel this way about a book by an author, whose books I've esteemed so far, and every negative feeling is penned here with a very heavy heart. But the truth is, I didn't feel any emotion over it. If I did feel anything, it was only relief at finishing the book, so I could move on to something more interesting and forget about this bitter disappointment.
July 2, 2022
The Schmuck!
Such a dupe, a weakling, a pushover! These are the best names for our narrator.
The only time I had some respect for him, is when he planned to murder someone.
Suffice to say, I am not a big fan of this book. I’m going to read one more, give the author one more chance, and then I am through!
Such a dupe, a weakling, a pushover! These are the best names for our narrator.
The only time I had some respect for him, is when he planned to murder someone.
Suffice to say, I am not a big fan of this book. I’m going to read one more, give the author one more chance, and then I am through!
September 14, 2025
LT/ENG
4*su tvirta uodega!
Vėlgi pirmas kartas, pirma pažintis su autore- stulbinančiai sėkminga!
Įklampino nuo pradžios iki galo! Atmosferiška, teatriška, vietom net Christiška, o tuo pačiu tarsi stebėčiau 19a dailės kūrinį, padengtą tirštomis spalvomis, vaizduojantį mums taip tolimą, nors kartu žemišką dvaro gyvenimą. Kuris netikėtai atgyja herojų istorijose, susipinančios į vieno asmens gyvenimo savaitę.
Atrodo keliauji per amžius, o veiksmas trunka tik trumputėlę savaitę. Atrodo blaškaisi tarp nieko nesakančių vardų, visgi autorė įgalina kiekvieną iš jų išlukštenti, nupiešia turtingus, ryškius ir nepamirštamus paveikslus, kas suteikia tau teisę vertinti tarp myliu, nekenčiu, gailiu..
Pagrindinis herojus. Argi dvylipumas, vidinė kova nesislėpė jame pačiame? Įpynusi " dvynį" autorė tik suteikia priemonę atverti Pandoros skrynią- žmogaus juoda- balta, gera- bloga, tai yra santykį su pačiu savimi.
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4*with a strong tail!
First meeting with the author - amazingly successful!
Hooked from start to finish! Atmospheric, theatrical, sometimes even Christi'an and at the same time it's like I'm watching a 19th century work of art, covered with thick colors, depicting the life of a manor so distant to us, although at the same time so down to earth. Which unexpectedly comes alive within the stories of heroes, interwoven into a week of life of one person.
It seems like you are traveling through ages, while the action lasts only a short week. It seems that you are distracted among the names that do not mean anything, but the author enables you to unravel each of them, paints rich, vivid and unforgettable pictures, which gives you the right to judge between love, hate, pity..
The main hero. Wasn't the duality, the inner struggle hidden in him already? By interweaving the "twin", the author only provides a tool to open Pandora's box - person's black-white, good-bad, or in other words, just interrelation with oneself.
4*su tvirta uodega!
Vėlgi pirmas kartas, pirma pažintis su autore- stulbinančiai sėkminga!
Įklampino nuo pradžios iki galo! Atmosferiška, teatriška, vietom net Christiška, o tuo pačiu tarsi stebėčiau 19a dailės kūrinį, padengtą tirštomis spalvomis, vaizduojantį mums taip tolimą, nors kartu žemišką dvaro gyvenimą. Kuris netikėtai atgyja herojų istorijose, susipinančios į vieno asmens gyvenimo savaitę.
Atrodo keliauji per amžius, o veiksmas trunka tik trumputėlę savaitę. Atrodo blaškaisi tarp nieko nesakančių vardų, visgi autorė įgalina kiekvieną iš jų išlukštenti, nupiešia turtingus, ryškius ir nepamirštamus paveikslus, kas suteikia tau teisę vertinti tarp myliu, nekenčiu, gailiu..
Pagrindinis herojus. Argi dvylipumas, vidinė kova nesislėpė jame pačiame? Įpynusi " dvynį" autorė tik suteikia priemonę atverti Pandoros skrynią- žmogaus juoda- balta, gera- bloga, tai yra santykį su pačiu savimi.
*******************************************
4*with a strong tail!
First meeting with the author - amazingly successful!
Hooked from start to finish! Atmospheric, theatrical, sometimes even Christi'an and at the same time it's like I'm watching a 19th century work of art, covered with thick colors, depicting the life of a manor so distant to us, although at the same time so down to earth. Which unexpectedly comes alive within the stories of heroes, interwoven into a week of life of one person.
It seems like you are traveling through ages, while the action lasts only a short week. It seems that you are distracted among the names that do not mean anything, but the author enables you to unravel each of them, paints rich, vivid and unforgettable pictures, which gives you the right to judge between love, hate, pity..
The main hero. Wasn't the duality, the inner struggle hidden in him already? By interweaving the "twin", the author only provides a tool to open Pandora's box - person's black-white, good-bad, or in other words, just interrelation with oneself.
November 9, 2023
The Scapegoat I was lucky to receive a really old edition of this book from a used bookshop, the pages were yellowed and the smell of the paper was like walking into an old manor house with a log fire burning in the grate. I was immediately back in 1956 and throughly enjoyed my time spent with this novel.
He turned and stared at me and I at him, and I realised, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well. I was looking at myself.'
You will need to seriously suspend disbelief for this story as it’s highly implausible and yet it had me intrigued from start to finish. I think that is credit to the author’s unique writing ability. I adored the descriptive element of the novel, the characters are flawed and dislikable ( apart from one or two) which was an element I really enjoyed. The story is suspenseful and atmosphere and reading this over the Halloween period cosied up by the fire was my perfect transition into wintertime here in Ireland.
This isn’t a book I recommend to all my friends but if you’ve enjoyed Rebecca or Jamaica Inn or just good old fashioned classic novels then this might well be a good choice for you.
I probably would have rated this 3.5 stars if I read it in a new edition or on kindle , but that whiff of bygone days from my 1957 Hardback edition added so much joy to my reading experience.
A beautiful addition to my real life bookshelf and a really enchanting reading experience.
He turned and stared at me and I at him, and I realised, with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well. I was looking at myself.'
You will need to seriously suspend disbelief for this story as it’s highly implausible and yet it had me intrigued from start to finish. I think that is credit to the author’s unique writing ability. I adored the descriptive element of the novel, the characters are flawed and dislikable ( apart from one or two) which was an element I really enjoyed. The story is suspenseful and atmosphere and reading this over the Halloween period cosied up by the fire was my perfect transition into wintertime here in Ireland.
This isn’t a book I recommend to all my friends but if you’ve enjoyed Rebecca or Jamaica Inn or just good old fashioned classic novels then this might well be a good choice for you.
I probably would have rated this 3.5 stars if I read it in a new edition or on kindle , but that whiff of bygone days from my 1957 Hardback edition added so much joy to my reading experience.
A beautiful addition to my real life bookshelf and a really enchanting reading experience.
July 30, 2023
Trying to walk in someone else's shoes can be a valuable experience - you can learn a lot about yourself. However, by trying to rectify someone else's mistakes of the past you are running the risk of getting emotionally involved with the people who have nothing to do with you and the place where you do not belong.
I think the author's aim was to show how a person, unavoidably, changes the atmosphere around him or her, especially when he or she changes his/her behaviour patterns.
The novel certainly gives the reader food for thought but, from my point of view, something is missing in the story.
I think the author's aim was to show how a person, unavoidably, changes the atmosphere around him or her, especially when he or she changes his/her behaviour patterns.
The novel certainly gives the reader food for thought but, from my point of view, something is missing in the story.
February 8, 2025
„Изкупителна жертва“ е превъзходен роман! Дафни дю Морие е съчетала елементи на напрегнат трилър и семейна драма по характерния за нея очарователен начин, пренасяйки читателите в приковаваща вниманието книжна атмосфера. Сложните отношения в голямо аристократично семейство несъмнено подтикват към размисли по морални теми, а пък възприемането и изучаването в мрачни ситуации на непознатата самоличност на двойника предизвикат силни емоции.
Действието в книгата се развива във Франция в годините след Втората световна война. Джон случайно се запознава със своя двойник Жан, който скоро изчезва и го поставя в изключително неловка ситуация. Главният герой трябва да се справи с ролята на френския граф и бизнесмен, за чиито личен живот и тайни от миналото няма никаква представа и внимателно трябва да проучи, за да не бъде разкрит. Оказва се, че Жан е избягал от сериозни финансови трудности, въвличайки Джон в страшно динамични и опасни премеждия...
„— Не съм преживял трагедия — промърморих. — Измъчва ме усещането, че съм неудачник.
— О, това ли било! Вие, аз, хората наоколо — всички сме неудачници. Тайната на спокойния живот е отрано да осъзнаеш този факт и да се примириш. След това престава да те вълнува.“
„Никой няма право да си играе с живота на хората, да се намесва в чувствата им. Всяка дума, поглед, усмивка, намръщване оказват влияние на ближните, предизвикват радост или омраза, всички човеци са свързани с верига без начало и край, затова борбата за съществуване на всекиго зависи от другия.“
„Прозорецът беше като рамка на пасторалната картина, изпълнена с мир и спокойствие, искаше ми се да бъда само зрител, не и участник, все едно съм пътник във влак, който гледа пейзажа, бягащ край вагона. От друга страна, именно тази безучастност, липсата на контакт с ближните бе причина за дълбокото ми неудовлетворение от досегашния ми живот.“
„Думите ѝ сякаш пробиха дупка в мълчанието. Странно, но излизаше, че с Мари-Ноел сме съюзници, обединяваха ни невинността ѝ и фактът, че не знаех мрачните семейни тайни.“
„— Мисля си, господин Жан, че за човек като вас, участвал в Съпротивата, войната е планирана и е нещо като игра, в която или ще победите, или ще се провалите. Обаче за ония, дето не участват в нея, е съвсем различно. Все едно да си в затвор, но без решетки, и не се знае кой е престъпник и кой — тъмничар, кой лъже и кой кого е предал.“
„Представих си как би се смял Жан дьо Ге, ако научеше в какъв капан съм попаднал. Трудно е да преглътнеш унижението, особено когато е предшествано от самодоволство.“
„— Е, не се съдете толкова строго. Понякога кокетничим, като се самокритикуваме. Казваме си: „Стигнах дъното, по-ниско не мога да падна“ и дори изпитваме удоволствие от затъването в мрака. За съжаление човек никога не стига дъното. Злото в нас е безкрайно… както и доброто. Всичко е въпрос на избор. Правим усилие да се изкачим или да паднем. Важното е да разберем накъде сме се запътили.
— Много по-лесно е да паднеш — казах. — Доказва го законът за земното притегляне.“
„Изминалите години, в които нямах право да надничам, сякаш се сляха в едно като яйцата, маслото и подправките. Вече не можеха да бъдат разделени, да бъдат проучвани поотделно. Бях отговорен за настоящето, не за миналото.“
„Внезапно разбрах, че симпатията ми към тях не е предизвикана от любопитство и от сантиментално увлечение към старомодните традиции, а от някакво по-дълбоко и съкровено чувство, от стремеж да осигуря добруването им, толкова силен, че ми причиняваше болка. Не целях да им осигуря щастливо бъдеще само за да спечеля уважението им, а най-странното беше, че обичах не само тях и хората от замъка, но и всичко неодушевено — хълма, чиито контури се очертаваха на фона на небето, стръмния песъчлив път, лозницата, пълзяща по стената на къщата на управителя на фабриката, дърветата в гората.“
„Металната завеса ме разделяше от замъка, не от Бела. Табуто не се отнасяше до нея. Светлината от прозореца ѝ бе като ръка, протегната за утеха, като символ на действителността. В този момент ми се струваше, че най-важното е да направя разлика между истинското и фалшивото, защото двете понятия ми се струваха еднакви.“
„— Искам да познаят щастието. Но не щастието според неговите представи, а онова, което е заключено в тях. Сигурен съм, че то съществува, Бела, виждал съм го за миг като проблясък на светлина или жажда, знам, че чака да бъде освободено.“
Действието в книгата се развива във Франция в годините след Втората световна война. Джон случайно се запознава със своя двойник Жан, който скоро изчезва и го поставя в изключително неловка ситуация. Главният герой трябва да се справи с ролята на френския граф и бизнесмен, за чиито личен живот и тайни от миналото няма никаква представа и внимателно трябва да проучи, за да не бъде разкрит. Оказва се, че Жан е избягал от сериозни финансови трудности, въвличайки Джон в страшно динамични и опасни премеждия...
„— Не съм преживял трагедия — промърморих. — Измъчва ме усещането, че съм неудачник.
— О, това ли било! Вие, аз, хората наоколо — всички сме неудачници. Тайната на спокойния живот е отрано да осъзнаеш този факт и да се примириш. След това престава да те вълнува.“
„Никой няма право да си играе с живота на хората, да се намесва в чувствата им. Всяка дума, поглед, усмивка, намръщване оказват влияние на ближните, предизвикват радост или омраза, всички човеци са свързани с верига без начало и край, затова борбата за съществуване на всекиго зависи от другия.“
„Прозорецът беше като рамка на пасторалната картина, изпълнена с мир и спокойствие, искаше ми се да бъда само зрител, не и участник, все едно съм пътник във влак, който гледа пейзажа, бягащ край вагона. От друга страна, именно тази безучастност, липсата на контакт с ближните бе причина за дълбокото ми неудовлетворение от досегашния ми живот.“
„Думите ѝ сякаш пробиха дупка в мълчанието. Странно, но излизаше, че с Мари-Ноел сме съюзници, обединяваха ни невинността ѝ и фактът, че не знаех мрачните семейни тайни.“
„— Мисля си, господин Жан, че за човек като вас, участвал в Съпротивата, войната е планирана и е нещо като игра, в която или ще победите, или ще се провалите. Обаче за ония, дето не участват в нея, е съвсем различно. Все едно да си в затвор, но без решетки, и не се знае кой е престъпник и кой — тъмничар, кой лъже и кой кого е предал.“
„Представих си как би се смял Жан дьо Ге, ако научеше в какъв капан съм попаднал. Трудно е да преглътнеш унижението, особено когато е предшествано от самодоволство.“
„— Е, не се съдете толкова строго. Понякога кокетничим, като се самокритикуваме. Казваме си: „Стигнах дъното, по-ниско не мога да падна“ и дори изпитваме удоволствие от затъването в мрака. За съжаление човек никога не стига дъното. Злото в нас е безкрайно… както и доброто. Всичко е въпрос на избор. Правим усилие да се изкачим или да паднем. Важното е да разберем накъде сме се запътили.
— Много по-лесно е да паднеш — казах. — Доказва го законът за земното притегляне.“
„Изминалите години, в които нямах право да надничам, сякаш се сляха в едно като яйцата, маслото и подправките. Вече не можеха да бъдат разделени, да бъдат проучвани поотделно. Бях отговорен за настоящето, не за миналото.“
„Внезапно разбрах, че симпатията ми към тях не е предизвикана от любопитство и от сантиментално увлечение към старомодните традиции, а от някакво по-дълбоко и съкровено чувство, от стремеж да осигуря добруването им, толкова силен, че ми причиняваше болка. Не целях да им осигуря щастливо бъдеще само за да спечеля уважението им, а най-странното беше, че обичах не само тях и хората от замъка, но и всичко неодушевено — хълма, чиито контури се очертаваха на фона на небето, стръмния песъчлив път, лозницата, пълзяща по стената на къщата на управителя на фабриката, дърветата в гората.“
„Металната завеса ме разделяше от замъка, не от Бела. Табуто не се отнасяше до нея. Светлината от прозореца ѝ бе като ръка, протегната за утеха, като символ на действителността. В този момент ми се струваше, че най-важното е да направя разлика между истинското и фалшивото, защото двете понятия ми се струваха еднакви.“
„— Искам да познаят щастието. Но не щастието според неговите представи, а онова, което е заключено в тях. Сигурен съм, че то съществува, Бела, виждал съм го за миг като проблясък на светлина или жажда, знам, че чака да бъде освободено.“
August 18, 2010
Scapegoat has an intriguing history as a word. Originally, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus, the High Priest confessed the sins of the people on the Day of Atonement over the head of a live goat which was then allowed to escape, taking the sins with it. From this religious tradition developed the meaning of a person, group or thing who takes the blame for the mistakes or crimes of others.
In Daphne du Maurier's excellent novel, an English history professor on his way home from holiday in France, is reflecting on his unfulfilling and lonely life when he meets a man in a restaurant. The man, Jean de Gue, is his double but of a very different character. By means of alcohol, possibly a drug, and trickery, the main character wakes up the next day with Jean de Gue's luggage and clothes, finds that his doppelganger has vanished, and that he is being picked up by de Gue's faithful servant.
Feeling that the police will think him mad, feeling in truth somewhat mad, he allows himself to be taken to a rundown chateau in the country, where he is not suspected by anyone in the family. In this post WWII setting, the three generations live in genteel poverty amid bitterness and a failing glass factory.
The man takes up Jean de Gue's life, penetrating the several mysteries of the family's past and in a bumbling fashion manages to fix everything and restore the family to happiness. All the while, though the reader is hoping this man will succeed, du Maurier in her inimitable fashion leaves you feeling that it cannot possibly end well. Of course it doesn't but the final scenes do support the title and the theme of the scapegoat.
What makes this book so good is the way the author handles all the improbabilities of the story. She had me willingly suspending my disbelief most of the time. Even when I could not believe that the family members did not realize it was a different man, I was so engrossed in the story that I did not care. I also love how this writer always makes some point of wisdom about life in her tales and she did not fail me in this one.
December 2, 2017
What an amazing story! I read the second half in one go because I just couldn’t put it down. Oh what a tangled web..! This book had all the feels- sadness, hope, love, regret, redemption, transformation and loss. The ending was the right one but I railled against it. Once again I am in awe of Du Maurier’s skill. This story will sit with me for quite some time.
Recommended
Recommended
October 12, 2021
I would give 4 stars to this book. However, the plot is very unlikely even that is captivating story. A quite disappointing end, I was expecting a more dramatic one.
The movie based on this book is quite okay.
The movie based on this book is quite okay.
February 27, 2017
Very clever and enjoyable! I am not sure what I can say about this that hasn't already been said in other reviews...but, I can tell you for certain that I loved it. So, I can add that to the others that truly enjoyed this novel. It was unexpected. It wasn't even what I thought it would be about when I had so many times passed it over for something else. I might not had read it had it not been for my reading group picking it as a buddy read and, well, I like to read with those gals.
The book has been summarized often in GR reviews. I am not going to add anything more. Du Maurier is one of my favorite authors. I named one of my very pretty tuxedo cats after her 10 years ago this March. (this is 2017). Rebecca has been on my favorites list for it seems forever. If you have not read a Daphne du Maurier before, do yourself a favor and read one now. They never disappoint.
This story about two men who switch identities is so much more that what it seems on the surface. It brings a lot of self-introspection and often times has the reader asking, "What would I do in this situation?" The are memorable characters you won't soon (if ever) forget. The conflict is decidedly resolved in the way that works best, though, initially, I was not so sure of that.
I loved the discussion our group had. Other perspectives always make for a more interesting read for me. So much to think about. I am still pondering some of the character's actions. I think this will stick with me for a long while. Such a satisfying read. Highly recommended!!! I picked it up first at a very low price on Amazon for Kindle when my buddies decided to read it. I later added the audible version as I got further into the book. I can tell you it is well worth the credit! The narrator is exceptional. And, I listen to a lot of audio books.
This was just the perfect read. I couldn't ask for anything more :-)
The book has been summarized often in GR reviews. I am not going to add anything more. Du Maurier is one of my favorite authors. I named one of my very pretty tuxedo cats after her 10 years ago this March. (this is 2017). Rebecca has been on my favorites list for it seems forever. If you have not read a Daphne du Maurier before, do yourself a favor and read one now. They never disappoint.
This story about two men who switch identities is so much more that what it seems on the surface. It brings a lot of self-introspection and often times has the reader asking, "What would I do in this situation?" The are memorable characters you won't soon (if ever) forget. The conflict is decidedly resolved in the way that works best, though, initially, I was not so sure of that.
I loved the discussion our group had. Other perspectives always make for a more interesting read for me. So much to think about. I am still pondering some of the character's actions. I think this will stick with me for a long while. Such a satisfying read. Highly recommended!!! I picked it up first at a very low price on Amazon for Kindle when my buddies decided to read it. I later added the audible version as I got further into the book. I can tell you it is well worth the credit! The narrator is exceptional. And, I listen to a lot of audio books.
This was just the perfect read. I couldn't ask for anything more :-)
November 3, 2022
Nie jest to poziom Rebeki, ale lektura była dla mnie wspaniała. Zaskakująca, klimatyczna i wciągająca!
May 18, 2019
One of the great joys of growing in Cornwall at the time I did was that Daphne Du Maurier’s books were everywhere; because she was a renowned author who was still living and writing at her much loved home on the Cornish coast. She was one of a small number of authors that my mother guided me towards when I progressed from the junior to the senior library. I don’t remember which book I read first, but I remember that I was captivated, and that I picked up another, and another, and another …. until I had read every novel and every collection of short stories.
When Virago started reissuing those books I was astonished to learn that all but one was out of print. How could that happen to books that told such wonderful stories; stories that were so very well written, that had such depths, that so many people must love …. ?
I was delighted to be able to add copies to my collection; and to realise that I hadn’t looked for those books before because they made such an impression on me the first time I read them that I hadn’t needed to look for them again; and to know that those books would be ready and waiting for me when those impressions faded enough for me to need to go back.
That time might have come, certainly it is very near; because when you go on storing away memories of books, of stories, of characters, it is inevitable that older memories will be pushed further back.
I picked up ‘The Scapegoat’ for Daphne Du Maurier Reading Week because I have read two earlier books that spin around the same conceit – that two men who are physically identical but very different in other ways – change places – and I wanted to see if this book was as I remembered.
It was, and age and experience gave me a new appreciation of it.
John was a young Englishman, unmarried and with no family ties. He loved history, he earned his living as a lecturer, and though he worked diligently to ensure that his lectures were scholarly, precise and engaging, he was sure that he could never fully convey the glory of his subject.
Even if I held their flagging interest for a brief half hour, I should know, when I had finished, that nothing I had said to them was of any value, that I had only given them images of history brightly coloured – wax-work models, puppet figures strutting through a charade. The real meaning of history would have escaped me, because I had never been close enough to people.
He loved France, where most of the history that he loved had happened; and he could lose himself in the past as he explored old streets in different cities, but there would always be something that pulled him back to the present day and a sad realisation.
I was an alien, I was not one of them. Years of study, years of training, the fluency with which I spoke their language, taught their history, described their culture, had never brought me closer to the people themselves.
It is in one of those cities, in a bar near the railway station, that he encounters a Frenchman named Jean who both looks and sounds exactly like him. The two men talk, they drink together, and John remembers nothing more until he wakes in a hotel room. He finds that he has none of his own papers and possessions, but that he does have those of a certain Jean de Gue.
A chauffeur appears and anxiously asks:
“Monsieur le Comte is himself again?”
John makes a rapid decision, not to protest but to step into a different life. Quite unexpectedly, and almost inadvertently, he has many of the things he always wanted, though not in the way he had thought he might gain those things, and in a way that is rather difficult to handle.
He has inherited a troubled family, a struggling business, and another life to one side of that, all rooted in and shaped by a history that he knows nothing about. At first John feels that he has is watching a play, but of course he is an actor not a spectator. He plays the part of Jean, and that frees him from the aspects of John’s life that disappoint him and allows him to live a very different life, but that comes at a price.
Not only does he have to have to think carefully about every word and every action, he has to deal with situations and relationships that he lacks the skill and experience to handle, and that forces him to think deeply about his own motives and actions.
Most significantly he has to wonder if he is playing the part of Jean, if he is becoming Jean, and if John can influence Jean and shape a different future.
As Jean he is amused, but as John he is deeply concerned.
He faces one moral dilemma after another, and though his actions seem benign he quite inadvertently causes harm. And so he becomes a scapegoat:
I could not ask forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault.
The exploration of what makes a man and a life, of to what degree a man plays different roles as he live that life, and to what degree good and evil coexist in that man is quite brilliant; and all of that is wrapped up in a cleverly plotted, beautifully written, compulsively readable story.
Words were carefully chosen, and there were so many seemingly simple sentences and passages that were heavy with meaning; leaving me torn between turning the pages to find out what would happen and pausing to think about what was being said.
I was caught up with John from the first page, I cared about what would happen to him, and I really feel that I shared all of his thoughts and emotions and experiences. I understood why he came to care about the people in Jean’s life and about what happened to them. They were real, fallible human beings, and as John and I learned more about their past – and about Jean – I understood how their characters and attitude had been formed.
The resolution was perfect; but it left me wanting to know what would happen next.
And inclined to do a little more re-reading ….
When Virago started reissuing those books I was astonished to learn that all but one was out of print. How could that happen to books that told such wonderful stories; stories that were so very well written, that had such depths, that so many people must love …. ?
I was delighted to be able to add copies to my collection; and to realise that I hadn’t looked for those books before because they made such an impression on me the first time I read them that I hadn’t needed to look for them again; and to know that those books would be ready and waiting for me when those impressions faded enough for me to need to go back.
That time might have come, certainly it is very near; because when you go on storing away memories of books, of stories, of characters, it is inevitable that older memories will be pushed further back.
I picked up ‘The Scapegoat’ for Daphne Du Maurier Reading Week because I have read two earlier books that spin around the same conceit – that two men who are physically identical but very different in other ways – change places – and I wanted to see if this book was as I remembered.
It was, and age and experience gave me a new appreciation of it.
John was a young Englishman, unmarried and with no family ties. He loved history, he earned his living as a lecturer, and though he worked diligently to ensure that his lectures were scholarly, precise and engaging, he was sure that he could never fully convey the glory of his subject.
Even if I held their flagging interest for a brief half hour, I should know, when I had finished, that nothing I had said to them was of any value, that I had only given them images of history brightly coloured – wax-work models, puppet figures strutting through a charade. The real meaning of history would have escaped me, because I had never been close enough to people.
He loved France, where most of the history that he loved had happened; and he could lose himself in the past as he explored old streets in different cities, but there would always be something that pulled him back to the present day and a sad realisation.
I was an alien, I was not one of them. Years of study, years of training, the fluency with which I spoke their language, taught their history, described their culture, had never brought me closer to the people themselves.
It is in one of those cities, in a bar near the railway station, that he encounters a Frenchman named Jean who both looks and sounds exactly like him. The two men talk, they drink together, and John remembers nothing more until he wakes in a hotel room. He finds that he has none of his own papers and possessions, but that he does have those of a certain Jean de Gue.
A chauffeur appears and anxiously asks:
“Monsieur le Comte is himself again?”
John makes a rapid decision, not to protest but to step into a different life. Quite unexpectedly, and almost inadvertently, he has many of the things he always wanted, though not in the way he had thought he might gain those things, and in a way that is rather difficult to handle.
He has inherited a troubled family, a struggling business, and another life to one side of that, all rooted in and shaped by a history that he knows nothing about. At first John feels that he has is watching a play, but of course he is an actor not a spectator. He plays the part of Jean, and that frees him from the aspects of John’s life that disappoint him and allows him to live a very different life, but that comes at a price.
Not only does he have to have to think carefully about every word and every action, he has to deal with situations and relationships that he lacks the skill and experience to handle, and that forces him to think deeply about his own motives and actions.
Most significantly he has to wonder if he is playing the part of Jean, if he is becoming Jean, and if John can influence Jean and shape a different future.
As Jean he is amused, but as John he is deeply concerned.
He faces one moral dilemma after another, and though his actions seem benign he quite inadvertently causes harm. And so he becomes a scapegoat:
I could not ask forgiveness for something I had not done. As scapegoat, I could only bear the fault.
The exploration of what makes a man and a life, of to what degree a man plays different roles as he live that life, and to what degree good and evil coexist in that man is quite brilliant; and all of that is wrapped up in a cleverly plotted, beautifully written, compulsively readable story.
Words were carefully chosen, and there were so many seemingly simple sentences and passages that were heavy with meaning; leaving me torn between turning the pages to find out what would happen and pausing to think about what was being said.
I was caught up with John from the first page, I cared about what would happen to him, and I really feel that I shared all of his thoughts and emotions and experiences. I understood why he came to care about the people in Jean’s life and about what happened to them. They were real, fallible human beings, and as John and I learned more about their past – and about Jean – I understood how their characters and attitude had been formed.
The resolution was perfect; but it left me wanting to know what would happen next.
And inclined to do a little more re-reading ….
February 7, 2017
Very thought provoking novel. I found the premise of this story very intriguing and I found I couldn't stop wondering what I would do if I met my exact double. I think the hair on the back of my neck would stand up if I walked into a pub and sat down next to a clone of myself. But that's just the beginning of this adventure. Like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, the narrator finds himself in another world; a world that he finds curiouser and curiouser.
So, what happens when you come face to face with your exact double but wake up the next day only to find that he/she has switched identities with you? You might feel like you have no choice but to play along. Let the chauffeur take you home to a chateau full of depressed and embittered family members. Throw in a couple of religious fanatics just for good measure. Next, you might actually begin to think that you can help these people if you can just avoid detection long enough. I think you're getting the idea. I'm actually still a bit unnerved by this macabre tale and I will be thinking about this thriller for many days, probably weeks. What Daphne du Maurier achieved is a well-crafted and suspenseful mystery that pulled me into the story very swiftly and even though I've closed the cover I still feel like a deer staring into headlights. I can't quite pull myself away from the events and the characters, so I'm at a standstill.
Once again, du Maurier has put me in a trance with her atmospheric prose:
"I wondered how it would look at nightfall, this town of Villars, turning early to sleep and silence like all provincial market towns, the inhabitants behind their shutters and in bed, the houses in shadow, the mellow roofs sloping to pitchy eaves, the flamboyant Gothic spire of the cathedral church stabbing an ink-blue sky; no sound, perhaps, but the passing footstep of a loiterer homeward bound and the hardly perceptible ripple of the canals still and dark beside the walls".
Oh yes, this story is beautifully written, haunting and is worthy of a second reading. Chock-a-block full of symbolism, this is a very well thought out plot but I think the less said the better. I don't want to give too much away. This is a masterpiece. My only complaint is the ending and I could quibble that it wasn't very satisfying. But, I've read other novels by du Maurier and that seems to be part of her style; she makes me come to my own conclusion.
If this sounds like too much effort to put into pleasure reading, I assure you it's well worth the time spent turning pages. I highly recommend this for rainy day reading or a sleepless night.
So, what happens when you come face to face with your exact double but wake up the next day only to find that he/she has switched identities with you? You might feel like you have no choice but to play along. Let the chauffeur take you home to a chateau full of depressed and embittered family members. Throw in a couple of religious fanatics just for good measure. Next, you might actually begin to think that you can help these people if you can just avoid detection long enough. I think you're getting the idea. I'm actually still a bit unnerved by this macabre tale and I will be thinking about this thriller for many days, probably weeks. What Daphne du Maurier achieved is a well-crafted and suspenseful mystery that pulled me into the story very swiftly and even though I've closed the cover I still feel like a deer staring into headlights. I can't quite pull myself away from the events and the characters, so I'm at a standstill.
Once again, du Maurier has put me in a trance with her atmospheric prose:
"I wondered how it would look at nightfall, this town of Villars, turning early to sleep and silence like all provincial market towns, the inhabitants behind their shutters and in bed, the houses in shadow, the mellow roofs sloping to pitchy eaves, the flamboyant Gothic spire of the cathedral church stabbing an ink-blue sky; no sound, perhaps, but the passing footstep of a loiterer homeward bound and the hardly perceptible ripple of the canals still and dark beside the walls".
Oh yes, this story is beautifully written, haunting and is worthy of a second reading. Chock-a-block full of symbolism, this is a very well thought out plot but I think the less said the better. I don't want to give too much away. This is a masterpiece. My only complaint is the ending and I could quibble that it wasn't very satisfying. But, I've read other novels by du Maurier and that seems to be part of her style; she makes me come to my own conclusion.
If this sounds like too much effort to put into pleasure reading, I assure you it's well worth the time spent turning pages. I highly recommend this for rainy day reading or a sleepless night.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 18, 2022
(review in English below)
Muito bom!
Não estava nada à espera de ficar completamente agarrada a esta história, mas a partir de determinada altura foi mesmo isso que aconteceu e não queria saber de mais nada a não ser o que iria acontecer em St. Gilles!
A história é contada na primeira pessoa por John, um inglês, professor universitário de história francesa. De férias em França, vê-se dum dia para o outro no lugar de um sósia e sente-se, nem ele próprio sabe porquê, compelido a manter essa situação, praticamente insustentável. Ao longo dos dias, vamos descobrindo, com John, quem é quem na família de Jean ("Monsieur le Comte"), que relacionamento têm uns com os outros e quais os acontecimentos passados que levaram ao estado de coisas presente.
A escrita é muito boa, a autora é mestra em criar tensão e a leitura tornou-se compulsiva, na ânsia de saber o que passaria a seguir e como iria John desembaraçar-se das várias situações que iam surgindo e, sobretudo, de como se iria resolver esta confusão no final. E foi precisamente o final que me desiludiu, apesar de ser perfeitamente adequado. Mas depois do suspense criado nos últimos capítulos, foi um pouco anticlimático...
De qualquer modo, gostei imenso e recomendo!
So good!
I really wasn't expecting to get completely hooked to this story, but after a certain point that was exactly what happened and I didn't care about anything other than what was going to happen next at St. Gilles!
This story is told by John, an Englishman who teaches French history at the university. While on holidays in France, he finds himself in the place of a doppelgänger and feels strangely compelled to hold up to that almost untenable situation. As the days pass, we find out, along with John, who is who in the large family of Jean ('Monsieur le Comte'), the relationships between them and the past events that led to the present state of affairs.
The writing is really good and du Maurier is great at creating tension. The reading became compulsive, as I yearned to know what would happen next and how would John get himself out of the several situations that presented to him. I was especially curious to find out how everything would come about in the end. And it was precisely the ending that I found disappointing, although it's perfectly adequate. After all the suspense that built up in the last chapters, the end was a bit of an anticlimax...
Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot and I recommend it!
Muito bom!
Não estava nada à espera de ficar completamente agarrada a esta história, mas a partir de determinada altura foi mesmo isso que aconteceu e não queria saber de mais nada a não ser o que iria acontecer em St. Gilles!
A história é contada na primeira pessoa por John, um inglês, professor universitário de história francesa. De férias em França, vê-se dum dia para o outro no lugar de um sósia e sente-se, nem ele próprio sabe porquê, compelido a manter essa situação, praticamente insustentável. Ao longo dos dias, vamos descobrindo, com John, quem é quem na família de Jean ("Monsieur le Comte"), que relacionamento têm uns com os outros e quais os acontecimentos passados que levaram ao estado de coisas presente.
A escrita é muito boa, a autora é mestra em criar tensão e a leitura tornou-se compulsiva, na ânsia de saber o que passaria a seguir e como iria John desembaraçar-se das várias situações que iam surgindo e, sobretudo, de como se iria resolver esta confusão no final. E foi precisamente o final que me desiludiu, apesar de ser perfeitamente adequado. Mas depois do suspense criado nos últimos capítulos, foi um pouco anticlimático...
De qualquer modo, gostei imenso e recomendo!
So good!
I really wasn't expecting to get completely hooked to this story, but after a certain point that was exactly what happened and I didn't care about anything other than what was going to happen next at St. Gilles!
This story is told by John, an Englishman who teaches French history at the university. While on holidays in France, he finds himself in the place of a doppelgänger and feels strangely compelled to hold up to that almost untenable situation. As the days pass, we find out, along with John, who is who in the large family of Jean ('Monsieur le Comte'), the relationships between them and the past events that led to the present state of affairs.
The writing is really good and du Maurier is great at creating tension. The reading became compulsive, as I yearned to know what would happen next and how would John get himself out of the several situations that presented to him. I was especially curious to find out how everything would come about in the end. And it was precisely the ending that I found disappointing, although it's perfectly adequate. After all the suspense that built up in the last chapters, the end was a bit of an anticlimax...
Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot and I recommend it!
January 15, 2021
The Scapegoat
Define as 'a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.'
Theory is 'serves as an opportunity to explain failure or misdeeds, while maintaining one's positive self-image.'
Jean vs John both of their appearances are the same and both speak relatively the same in voice. French vs English. High society life vs dull drum life. Family of complexity vs no Family. So why not take advantage of the situation and switch lives!
Seven days is all John got but what was accomplished in those seven days was remarkable changes for the whole family of Comte de Gué of St. Gilles and the family business of Verrerie (glass-work) and which all members reside in the stately Chateau.
When John was confronted by the return of Jean he felt overwhelmed. He had put his heart into the family and the solving of the issues that Jean had caused. Jean was coming back...intruder? into John's home and family.
I wanted Jean to be so egotistical, so rapacious, so monstrous that he would lose his family for good!
du Maurier was researching about her ancestors that were glass-blowers in France which was the basis for her novel The Glass-Blowers. She was sidetracked by a walk, in the square of a French town, du Maurier saw a man who looked just like someone she knew. Passing a window with a scene of a family she began to wonder. She wrote the novel in six months and paralleled her own family life in it.
"It is my story, and it is Moper's [Tommy her husband] also. We are both doubles. So it is with everyone. Every one of us has his, or her, dark side. Which is to overcome the other? This is the purpose of the book. And it ends, as you know, with the problem unsolved, except that the suggestion there, when I finished it, was that the two sides of that man's nature had to fuse together to give birth to a third..."
To be honest I watched the movie "The Scapegoat" from 2012 and preferred the ending of this story much more, but probably not as realistic as du Maurier's ending.
Define as 'a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.'
Theory is 'serves as an opportunity to explain failure or misdeeds, while maintaining one's positive self-image.'
Jean vs John both of their appearances are the same and both speak relatively the same in voice. French vs English. High society life vs dull drum life. Family of complexity vs no Family. So why not take advantage of the situation and switch lives!
Seven days is all John got but what was accomplished in those seven days was remarkable changes for the whole family of Comte de Gué of St. Gilles and the family business of Verrerie (glass-work) and which all members reside in the stately Chateau.
When John was confronted by the return of Jean he felt overwhelmed. He had put his heart into the family and the solving of the issues that Jean had caused. Jean was coming back...intruder? into John's home and family.
I wanted Jean to be so egotistical, so rapacious, so monstrous that he would lose his family for good!
du Maurier was researching about her ancestors that were glass-blowers in France which was the basis for her novel The Glass-Blowers. She was sidetracked by a walk, in the square of a French town, du Maurier saw a man who looked just like someone she knew. Passing a window with a scene of a family she began to wonder. She wrote the novel in six months and paralleled her own family life in it.
"It is my story, and it is Moper's [Tommy her husband] also. We are both doubles. So it is with everyone. Every one of us has his, or her, dark side. Which is to overcome the other? This is the purpose of the book. And it ends, as you know, with the problem unsolved, except that the suggestion there, when I finished it, was that the two sides of that man's nature had to fuse together to give birth to a third..."
To be honest I watched the movie "The Scapegoat" from 2012 and preferred the ending of this story much more, but probably not as realistic as du Maurier's ending.
April 21, 2018
"Someone jolted my elbow as I drank and said 'Je sous demande pardon," and as I moved to give him space he turned and stared at me and I at him, and I realized with a strange sense of shock and fear and nausea all combined, that his face and voice were known to me too well....I was looking at myself."
John, the narrator, is an Englishman who is an expert in French history and language. He's a lonely man without a family who is thinking of joining a monastery to find meaning in his life. His double, Jean de Gue, is self-centered, extroverted, and the head of a large French family and a failing business. After a night of drinking, John awakes to find Jean has disappeared with John's identification papers, luggage, and car. A driver comes to pick up Monsieur le Comte, and John goes into Jean's life without any background knowledge. Since Jean is known to be charming one minute and hurtful the next, no one but the dog can tell the difference between the two men.
It's a suspenseful psychological study as we learn the secrets of Jean's life through the eyes of John as he works out the relationships and family history. As he deals with Jean's family, John is transformed. Since John has a kinder, more thoughtful nature, the family also undergoes some changes. Will Jean ever return to his family?
The book has a wonderful setting--a chateau in St Gilles in the Pas de la Loire. A dozen years have passed since the Occupation and there is still friction between those who were members of the Resistance and the collaborators. The book reveals the psychological profiles of the two men and the family layer by layer. I'm a fan of Daphne du Maurier's skillful writing, and "The Scapegoat" is one of her best works.
John, the narrator, is an Englishman who is an expert in French history and language. He's a lonely man without a family who is thinking of joining a monastery to find meaning in his life. His double, Jean de Gue, is self-centered, extroverted, and the head of a large French family and a failing business. After a night of drinking, John awakes to find Jean has disappeared with John's identification papers, luggage, and car. A driver comes to pick up Monsieur le Comte, and John goes into Jean's life without any background knowledge. Since Jean is known to be charming one minute and hurtful the next, no one but the dog can tell the difference between the two men.
It's a suspenseful psychological study as we learn the secrets of Jean's life through the eyes of John as he works out the relationships and family history. As he deals with Jean's family, John is transformed. Since John has a kinder, more thoughtful nature, the family also undergoes some changes. Will Jean ever return to his family?
The book has a wonderful setting--a chateau in St Gilles in the Pas de la Loire. A dozen years have passed since the Occupation and there is still friction between those who were members of the Resistance and the collaborators. The book reveals the psychological profiles of the two men and the family layer by layer. I'm a fan of Daphne du Maurier's skillful writing, and "The Scapegoat" is one of her best works.
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