The Scapegoat (Virago Modern Classics)

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I came across this movie on Netflix streaming and I am glad I did. It is a superb movie with some surprising developments. It has a "Downton Abbey" sensibility to it, a privileged family in post-war England losing its grip on the castle and what it takes to afford it.

was a historian and gave lectures in England about his country and it's past. Not married - and has no children. If you swallow the far-fetched concept of doppelgängers so identical that nobody at all can tell them apart, then this is a premise rife with possibility. And, look, it isn’t possible. I speak as someone with a literal clone, and very few people would think we were the same person. No matter – let’s go on with the show. The secret of life is to recognize the fact early on, and become reconciled. Then it no longer matters".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… 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. 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.🤨 John learns that Maurice Duval, former head of the glassworks, was killed during the German Occupation. Marie-Noel goes missing and everyone but Françoise searches for her. When she's found in the well at the glassworks, John discovers that Jean murdered Duval and threw his body in the well, accusing him of being a Nazi collaborator. Marie-Noel climbed down the well as an act of penitence on behalf of her father. John also learns that Blanche had a relationship with Duval. 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?

Soon John finds himself enmeshed in a complicated web of lies and intrigues, with a grand house full of women and various strangers, most of whom seem angry at him. 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 flesh 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 how the trip to Paris went and whether he's gotten the papers signed. 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 despite their faults of character, trying to improve everyone's life and atone for Jean's shortcomings, bumbling along all the while.

More about The Scapegoat

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..."

Paris was ampoules of morphine. 'But his mother was not ill or dying, neither was she in pain' (p.234). He reluctantly administers the drug and she loses consciousness.

The scapegoat

I don't want to go too much into the story because how the story unfolds is the greatest pleasure of this movie. Daphne Du Maurier always has good stories that grab you into the mysteries but I think this movie has some improvements on the original literature on which it is based. 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.