[b:The Scapegoat|2115474|The Scapegoat|Daphne du Maurier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1244069373l/2115474._SX50_.jpg|2278127] 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 [b:Rebecca|17899948|Rebecca|Daphne du Maurier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948._SX50_.jpg|46663] or [b:Jamaica Inn|18869967|Jamaica Inn|Daphne du Maurier|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605082l/18869967._SX50_.jpg|430524] 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. ( )

As always with du Maurier's work this is beautifully written. However, I'm not sure I really 100% believed the premise.

John is a university history lecturer, specialising in France, and a fluent French speaker. But he is falling into depression and finding life meaningless, feeling no connection with other people. On a holiday in France, while travelling to a monastery where he hopes the monks will give him answers to his spiritual crisis, he has a chance encounter with a man who looks exactly like him, and his whole life is changed. And so are the people that his doppelganger has decided to abandon - by drugging John and taking all his belongings and his identity - or maybe not, given the ending which I won't divulge.

John finds meaning and connection through his decision to go along with the pretence rather than make a huge fuss at the police station and try to convince them he is not the Comte de Gue, as everyone believes him to be, although at first he embarks upon the adventure as something to amuse him and distract him from his own depression. Gradually he comes to care for the various members of the Comte's family, and to learn what his alter ego has done to them in the past. For Jean de Gue has a dark past, it transpires. And John also begins to take on the identity of the Comte as a kind of alternative more confident self; a darker self, until he almost becomes capable of the kind of dark deed the Comte has committed.

There is a great build up at the end of the novel, but it is not really delivered on. I was expecting something much more dramatic. So I can only give this 3 stars. ( )

This is one of du Maurier's less well known novels, but it is very well written and atmospheric. Published and set in the 1950s, the titular character is John, a lonely Englishman staying in France who is an expert in Medieval French history, but who is affected with a vast ennui about his life and future. In a hotel bar in Le Mans he bumps into Jean comte de Gué, who is his exact physical double. They drink and dine, compare experiences of dissatisfaction with their own lives, and English John cannot tear himself away. The next morning he wakes up in a hotel room to find the comte has taken all his clothes and possessions and left him his own, forcing a swap of their lives on him. He encounters the comte's family and, while the story is very well told, and actions have their internal logic, he is accepted by the household far too readily for me, which I simply cannot believe would happen as it does here, notwithstanding that there are tensions and a lack of intimacy with his wife. He forms a bond with the count's daughter who accepts him utterly, but is otherwise very wise for her age. In fact, initially only the dog smells that something is wrong - though towards the end Jean's lover Béla also surmises his identity. John is kinder than his French counterpart and tries to put to right some wrongs. Jean returns in the end, and the novel ends somewhat unsatisfactorily with Jean resuming his role as count and John driving off to "find himself" in a nearby monastery, as he had been about to do at the outset. The descriptions of the French countryside and the way of life are very evocative of a timeless quality. ( )

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. ( )

The story is very involved and meticulously told. Every mannerism, glance and even photograph is imbued with tremendous meaning. Having read a few novels of this era, this seems to be something endemic to the period and not unique to this author.

The story is intriguing, if not terribly dramatic. I have a feeling there was an intent to dramatize a grand moral dilemma, but it doesn't really have that punch. ( )

Daphne du Maurier's suspenseful tale of doppelganger identity-switching set in post-World War Two France held my attention from beginning to end. The main character/narrator is John (whose last name is never revealed), who assumes the life of a look-alike French aristocratic businessman after being drugged in a hotel room in Le Mans by the Count, Jean de Gué. Jean has taken John's identity, clothes, and auto and disappeared, leaving John to assume control of the Frenchman's family, estate, and business.

The members of Jean's family and associates are viewed through John's eyes, and although he only spends a week amongst them, all are changed by his presence. (John is a professor of French history in England and speaks French fluently, and, improbably, no one realizes he is not Jean, so an ability to suspend belief about this lack of perception is necessary).

One passage at the beginning of the book (page 66 of my edition)illustrates that this is not simply a story about switched identities, but a story about how one's identity and actions affect those around us, "One had no right to play about with 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 is 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."

John's internal life before the switch was falling apart -- he felt he was a failure, a non-entity -- and he was contemplating entering a retreat in a monastery near Le Mans in order to come to terms with his depression and thoughts of suicide. He understands after his week as Jean de Gué that his actions can change other's lives. Sadly, although he improves the relationships Jean had with others, he realizes, though he has discovered what it is to love, and achieve a measure of success, his circumstances haven't changed, and he is still only John and not Jean de Gué.

The end of the story can be seen as disappointing, or possibly as the conclusion of a study of the nature of identity and self-discovery. ( )

This book is excellent. You do have to suspend disbelief that these two people look THAT much alike so that everyone is deceived when they switch places, but the story telling is very good. I like this one as much as Rebecca. ( )

Would have been five stars (maybe 4.5). Read on for why.

Slow start and then...wow, did it take off! Du Maurier had such a talent for Gothic fiction, and once again, that talent is showcased here. She just keeps weaving and weaving until the reader can't hardly wait to find out how it ends. The characterization was really good as well. However, I was not happy with the ending. I can only describe my reaction as...a deflated balloon. I was planning to watch the film(s) based on it when I finished, but now I'm not so sure I can take the disappointment again. I know books don't always end the way we like so I would not advise against reading this. It is definitely an excellent read. Just have to keep in mind that endings are not always wrapped up like a pretty bow.

( )

It's not fashionable to be a guy and love Daphne du Maurier. She has a reputation for Gothic romance, largely built on her masterful Rebecca, mysterious My Cousin Rachel and unashamedly chick lit Frenchman's Creek. The Scapegoat is an excellent example of why she transcends such categorisation.

The plot is simple: two men who look and speak alike bump into each other and swap places. We follow the journey of a depressed British historian replacing an obnoxious French businessman. As the novel evolves, we learn about the history, familial, business and political, which defines the relationships around his new identity. The two men, alike and apart, reflect a duality on the surface as disparate as Jekyll and Hyde but at times eerily aligned.

Du Maurier writes in her typically direct style. The protagonist's actions speak for themselves. While dark and psychological, the novel offers little explicit analysis into his motivation. Like My Cousin Rachel, the minimally burdensome onus is on the reader to develop their own opinions.

If you enjoy this novel, try also Don't Look Now and Other Stories. ( )

Loved it.

Strange, compelling little novel about two identical strangers (one of whom, of course, is a scoundrel) who switch lives. ( )

The Scapegoat
by Daphne DuMaurier
1942
PS Library

This is one f my favorite DuMaurier novels, and I am constantly debating myself about if this book is about impersonation in itself, or through psychological idioms..... Schizophrenia, mid life crisis.........The book begins when John , a wealthy Englishman goes on a holiday trip to France. Here he meets a man who is his double, Jean. They go for a drink but John drinks too much and wakes up in a hotel room, eventually realizing that Jean has disappeared, and so has everything he came with, including is identity documents. John cannot come to any conclusions to convince him of what has happened and ends up being chauffered to Jeans home. He is expected to continue his families business of glass making and shooting parties, things he knows nothing about and has no interest in learning. It soon becomes evident that Jean is using John as his Scapegoat; Jeans family and business are both in shambles and John is left with the mess

DuMauriers use of suspense and surprise are evident throughout the novel, and her engaging characters are easy to like and follow. Her use of atmosphere, and her ability to make you feel as though you are part of the book make this, as well as most of her novels, a fantastic story. ( )

I read this book after three awful classics (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Awakening, and Death of a Salesman) so I was especially relieved to find I'd picked up an excellent book worth rereading, finally. In this story, a man assumes another man's identity and swaps him places, and both men get to start fresh with just what the other man had, to make a better life for himself than he was living before, or at least to make the best of what he has available. ( )

Until recently the only book by Du Maurier I had ever read was Rebecca. I think I've read it two or three times since childhood. In the past few months I have read a few other selections and have become a fan. It's a shame she isn't widely read any longer. Published in 1956, The Scapegoat takes place over a week's time. It is set contemporaneously, but is still very gothic in nature. The story is full of characters with shadowy histories and unfolds in the classic gothic style with many twists and turns. What would you do if you were suddenly dropped into someone else's life for a week? You might be surprised by some of the choices Du Maurier's characters make.

( )

An Englishman named John meets a Frenchman name Jean. Jean drugs John, switches clothes and identity and leaves him faced with assuming another man's life. That life is not a happy one with a family business of a glass factory using out of date technology, a son who cheats with his brother's wife while neglecting his own, a sister who he has not spoken to in 15 years plus a mother who he supplies with morphine.

John whose own life is meaningless discovers love with this family. ( )

John (last name never given) is a British professor specializing in French history on holiday in France and at odds with what to do with his life, as he has no family and feels he is a failure. Then by chance he meets Jean de Gue, who looks exactly like him. The two have dinner and drinks, and then de Gue drugs John, takes all his things, and essentially switches lives with him.

The premise is a bit far-fetched, but du Maurier makes it work because essentially this is a psychological novel. de Gue disappears from the scene as the narrator takes over his life, returning to the chateau where his doppelganger is a minor count and lives with his neglected wife, spoiled daughter, morphine-addicted and dominating mother, a brother and sister who seem to hate de Gue, and a sister-in-law he's been having an affair with. This novel is not so much about improbable doubles as about who we really are and whether it is possible to take off and put on lives, to change ourselves into who we think we should be. As usual, du Maurier's writing is so good that the story becomes very gripping, and even though there isn't a lot of action, I kept wanting to know what would happen to John and the people he so quickly becomes entangled with. The house itself is also a character in the novel and, like the countess, dominates this family, as does their family history, their home village, and the specter of the recent war and occupation. The ending is somewhat unsatisfying, as it does seem to loop back to the beginning and leave things unresolved, especially as we have no idea how the changes John has brought into the de Gue family play out. I personally was hoping for a more romantic ending, but alas. Still, I don't think that detracts much from the overall enjoyment of this story.

Theme notes: Clearly, doubles/twins/doppelgangers are a primary theme, and this is an interest of mine. Du Maurier plays with this a lot, emphasizing shadows and reflections, teasing the reader with what is real and what is merely a character's perspective. Every character in the novel, not just the narrator, has a doubled self, depending on who perceives them. Other dominant themes include the weight of the past and escaping it, new starts and resurrections, wiping the slate clean. Could be worth a reread someday. ( )

Daphne du Maurier is a master of the suspense / thriller novel (without having to use scare tactics to actually frighten you?).

This novel builds in the usual way. Like a snake that winds itself around you - slowly, gradually, until you're close to the end and you feel like you can't breathe. The premise for this is brilliant - a man meets another man who looks exactly like himself. They have a chat over dinner, have a drink together, one man wakes up and the other man is gone - having taken the first man's identity with him.

... woah. Cool, right?

I love that the house is once again a character in this book - I love that the main protagonist is just thrown into this world he knows nothing about.

The one thing I didn't like about this book is the ending, and I won't spoil it for you but it just fell a little bit flat for me.

Overall, it's a solid Daphne du Maurier read and I loved it right up until the last few chapters. c: ( )

Review: The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier. A great story. After one chapter I realized what the ending would entail. It was obviously what would happen to Jene De Gue and John. I just couldn’t expect any other ending. I’ll let you come to your own conclusion if you read the book.

I still planned to read on. It turned out to be a well written story. It kept my interest to the very end. As I turned the pages there was always something knew to find out. Plus, all the character’s had their own main qualities associated within the story. The author created distinct temperaments and characteristic’s for each character, right down to the worker’s.

It was an adventure to read through and summarize reasons John’s gave the answers he did to many questions the family and friends afflicted upon him. For not anyone he did a great job figuring things out. If John spoke with an unnatural thought or behaved awkward nobody thought wrong of it, it was just that nobody really listened or cared to what he had to say. However if he did something wrong or in bad taste he was sure to get an ear full of disgrace.

I think Jean De Gue did care about some things in his own way. I keep imaging him as a care free guy with no worries in the world. His family had many faults of their own. They were a mixed up bunch of people who were trying to keep history in play and their noses in the air. The daughter, Marie-Noel and the Cure seemed to have some kind of instinct of trouble in the mist of aura when it came to Jean and John.

It was a shame that the author had to split the two men up at the end. I really liked both Jean and John. I enjoyed the book and recommend it to others to read.
( )

brilliantly written! the story of look-alikes trading lives is engrossing and emotionally gripping. ( )

I really enjoyed this story about two men, who look exactly alike, switching places in life and how it affects those around them. It has the same dark, mysterious feeling as "Rebecca" by the same author, and I liked that a lot! I would recommend it :) ( )

From the book jacket - Two men – one English, the other French – meet by chance in a provincial railway station and are astounded that they are so much alike that they could easily pass for each other. Over the course of a long evening, they talk and drink. It is not until he awakes the next day that John, the Englishman, realizes that he may have spoken too much. His French companion is gone, having stolen his identity. For his part, John has no choice but to take the Frenchman’s place – as master of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a large and embittered family, and keeper of too many secrets.

My reactions
Du Maurier writes wonderfully complex psychological suspense, and this is a stellar example of her skill. Told almost entirely from John’s point of view we see him go from a depressed professor, to a befuddled (and very hung over) victim of a cruel “practical joke,” to a concerned outsider doing his best to keep things going, and finally to a man who had found new reserves of inner strength.

The way in which John muddles along as “Jean de Gue” reveals much about his doppelganger. For no matter how badly he behaves, what horribly embarrassing mistakes he makes, how much he hurts (however unintentionally) Jean’s wife, sister-in-law, brother, sister, mother, employees, everyone forgives him because Jean has so charmed them in the past that they overlook his “bad-boy” behavior. But John, not knowing when or if Jean will return, tries to make the best of things. Touched by the loyalty of workers in the family’s glass foundry, he agrees to a contract that will bring financial ruin to the Comte de Gue. Trying to find a way to make amends, John discovers the realities of the family finances. Jean’s wife has a significant trust fund but a modest annual allowance – unless she bears a son or dies before her husband. Francoise is about seven-months pregnant and having a difficult time of it, so John tries his best to be solicitous hoping to hang on until the long-awaited son is born, but this is clearly a troubled marriage.

That’s not the only difficulty in the household. The dowager countess is a bed-ridden old woman with a somewhat sinister handmaid, Charlotte. Sister Blanche has not spoken to her brother in fifteen years, and is a repressed and bitter woman who spends much time praying at the altar in her room. Brother Paul is an ineffective businessman, saddled with doing his best to manage a business his older brother completely neglects. Paul’s wife Renee is a bored housewife whose sexual yearning for Jean is evident to everyone. Ten-year-old Marie-Noel is a spoiled child who dotes on her father, is jealous of the not-yet-born baby brother, ignores her mother and spies on the household (which at least provides John with information, because the little girl loves to tell her father all the secrets she uncovers).

The plot is full of twists and turns which kept me interested and intrigued from beginning to end. I had seen a British movie on PBS Masterpiece, but it differs significantly from the book, so my expectations of where the plot was going were quickly proven wrong. Then, just as I thought I had figured out what would happen, du Maurier changed direction on me again. There is no neat solution to the mess Jean de Gue has made of his life, despite how John tries to set things right. The book ends with many questions left for the future.
( )

John is an Englishman who has spent years travelling to France to learn of its history and language, going back to England to teach about his favourite subject at university. One day while on vacation, he chances to meet a man who looks exactly like him, a Frenchman called Jean. The likeness is uncanny and the other man offers him to share some drinks and after a night of drinking in a hotel room, John wakes up the next day dressed in the Frenchman's clothes with the man's suitcase there instead of his own and not a single of his own belongings or identity papers left behind to prove he is anyone else than the Comte Jean de Gué. It becomes amply clear when this man's driver arrives and tells him he's probably had too much to drink after John tries to tell him what has happened that he won't convince anyone that he is not in fact the Comte. His French is perfect, and for some reason, seeing himself wearing the other man's clothes in a mirror he sees the illusion is faultless; he stands a little bit more erect and even finds himself smiling and talking like his doppelgänger, so he decides there is no choice but to go along and play the role he's been stuck with and lets the driver bring him to Jean de Gué's château to meet the family. The other man had told him he yearned to have a simpler life as John had, with less commitments and fewer belongings, while John felt he'd failed at his life, and now was a chance to try something else altogether.

Soon John finds himself enmeshed in a complicated web of lies and intrigues, with a grand house full of women, most of whom seems angry at him, though one of them seems more inclined to be friendly, and then there is a great big beastly woman upstairs he is astounded to find looks like himself but in drag with a huge amount of weight added on; Jean's mother, which he can't help but call 'maman' and feel real affection for. Nobody takes him seriously when he tells them outright he is not Jean, but an Englishman called John, and that the real Jean has made off with his clothes and his car; they all dismiss his story as yet another one of Jean's pranks, or a consequence of too much drink. Instead a man angrily demands from him how the trip to Paris went and whether he's gotten the papers signed. Over the course of a week, John slowly untangles the mystery, starting with figuring out who the various individuals are, what Jean was meant to do in Paris, why everyone is angry with him, and then taking a liking to the man's various family members and employees, trying to improve everyone's life.

But there is a sudden death in the family, which may or may not be accidental, which means that all at once the family has access to a great fortune which was previously out of reach. And now, the real Jean de Gué—whom John had been sure from what he'd learned, that he had decided to disappear for good—on reading the news of the death in the papers, decides he wants to make the switch again to take advantage of his newfound riches, and threatens to kill John to get him out of the way.

There is a certain amount of suspension of disbelief needed here to enjoy this novel as fully as I did. After all, how is it possible that the man's own family, his own mother and daughter not recognize the switch? Can his accent be truly so faultless? Can't they 'see' these are two completely different personalities? But this character-driven story about identity and how one man views another through the eyes of others and then tries to improve him according to his own set of very different values proved to be a fascinating journey for me. Highly recommended. ( )

While traveling in France, John, an English university lecturer, comes face to face with his double. After an evening of drinking and exchanging stories, the English man awakes to find that the French man has gone and taken all of his belongings, leaving him with the French man's clothing and luggage. After a couple of feeble attempts to explain that he is not, in fact, Jean de Gué, he gives in and assumes his double's life. He speaks fluent French, so language isn't a problem. De Gué's family doesn't question his identity, attributing his strange behavior to the effects of a hangover. As John learns more about the “relatives” who share his house, he discovers that the real Jean has hurt each of them in some way, and a crisis looms.

I've read other books about doppelgangers, but this one is different. A religious motif predominates, from the devout Catholicism of some of the family members to the title of the book. I usually think of page-turners as being plot driven, but this one is very much character-driven. Just who is Jean de Gué, and what has he done that has led to this crisis? Is John better equipped to avert the crisis as an outsider with no emotional baggage? Is de Gué ever coming back, and if he does, is John prepared to leave?

Set near Le Mans, the novel has a strong sense of place. The setting is integral to the plot. Although it wasn't historical fiction at the time of its writing, it will appeal to readers of historical fiction set in post-WWII Europe. ( )

A pretty good book with a very unsatisfactory ending. John seemed to have learned nothing about himself and Jean would probably continue being an insufferable bastard. What was the point? ( )

Read during Winter 2003/2004

John, an English lecturer on French history, is travelling through France, unhappy with his rootless life, when he meets his doppleganger, a French comte named Jean. They spend a night drinking away and, in the morning, John finds Jean has left him with his identity and problems. Unbelieveably, John deciedes to pretend along. He stumbles and bumbles his way through Jean's life, missing every concievable clue as to the family and family business, painfully uncovering the secrets of past years. I wanted him to just walk away from it all until he became so emeshed that it seemed he had to stay. At this moment, Jean reappears and wants his life back; he has lived John's, utterely destroying it, and plans to kill him and take over. However, he lets him go with the promise that they will switch again in the future, as John drives away to a monastary. None of it really makes much sense and the family is so unlikeable that I only stuck with it to find out that last little painful secrets. Even they were not really worth it.