The Scapegoat (Virago Modern Classics)

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The resemblance in this case is being truly identical. When the two men meet, Jean de Gue asks John “You’re not the devil, by any chance?” There’s no question of actual relationship—they are just coincidentally exactly the same. Nobody suspects from looking or talking to John that he is not Jean, though his dog won’t have anything to do with him. The resemblance and meeting may be supernatural, in which case I’d claim the book as fantasy, but it’s not explicitly more than hinted at. We just have to accept that the two men are identical, their voices, their scents, everything down to the smallest detail. The least plausible thing to me is the language—though John is a lecturer in French history, how could someone so solitary really be so fluent? We’re told that though John has never used the “tu” form before, he uses it naturally when he needs to. He’s never been in this part of the country before, either. Suspend your disbelief and take it as a given. 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... " 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.

is more reminiscent of Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in which the two selves are part of the same person. In The Scapegoat, 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 goes completely unprepared into Jean’s life. Jean has a chateau, a glassworks, a wife, a mistress, a lover, a brother, a mother, a daughter and a sister who hasn’t spoken to him for fifteen years. The whole context is strange to John, who has to find ways of dealing with all of these things—and Jean’s life really does feel as complex as real life, and the tightrope John walks through it keeps you holding your breath as you read. 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..." 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. 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, The Scapegoat is a British film adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 1957 novel of the same name. The drama is written and directed by Charles Sturridge and stars Matthew Rhys as lookalike characters John Standing and Johnny Spence. It was broadcast on ITV on 9 September 2012.

The secret of life is to recognize the fact early on, and become reconciled. Then it no longer matters". The Scapegoat is a hidden gem buried deep within Du Maurier’s chest of treasure. Prepare to be astounded.

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John Barratt (Alec Guinness), a lonely, discontented teacher of French at a British university, is on holiday in France. There, by chance, he meets his double, French nobleman Jacques De Gué (Guinness again). They become acquainted. Barratt becomes drunk and accepts De Gué's invitation to share his hotel room. When he wakes up the next morning, Barratt finds himself alone in the room, with his clothes missing. De Gué's chauffeur Gaston shows up to take his master home, and Barratt is unable to convince him that he is not the nobleman. Gaston calls Dr. Aloin, who diagnoses (over the phone) the Englishman as suffering from schizophrenia. I think that’s as much as I can say without spoilers. This is another book that grabs me so much it’s hard for me to put down. 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." drunk and when he awakes, he discovers a chauffeur at the door: 'Monsieur le Comte is awake at last?'

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.

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men who look exactly alike, a teacher and a wealthy business man with a complicated personal life and business in trouble meet. The teacher inhabits the life of the business man who disappears. It's quite delightful and perfectly written how he interacts with the family members and romantic entanglements of the wealth man. The family's glassworks is losing money and faces closure. so John renegotiates a contract to keep it afloat for six months. The next day he learns Françoise's dowry is in trust for a male heir, but if she dies or reaches the age of 50 without having had a son, Jean will inherit the money instead. In the nearest town, John meets Béla, another of Jean's mistresses, who becomes suspicious of his sudden concern for the family and its business. 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.

It’s also beautifully written. I’ve never seen du Maurier better at the incidental metaphor, descriptions of people and places, and above all subtle and precise descriptions of how John feels and responds. 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." 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." 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! Jean is a 'devil' but Béla replies: 'he's not a devil. He's a human, ordinary man, just like yourself' (p.364). She tells him that 'you'veDaphne 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. 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. This classic gem is a piece of riveting. edge-of-your-seat suspense in the best tradition of the Queen of Cliffhangers. 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. was a historian and gave lectures in England about his country and it's past. Not married - and has no children.