Well, this is going to be one of my best reads of the year - it's unforgettable.
When I saw that Ali was running a Daphne du Maurier week last month, I wasn't particularly drawn to join in. While I really love and admire Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel, the few other of her books I've read didn't really knock me out. But when I saw both Ali's and Simon's reviews of The Scapegoat (1957), I was fascinated and knew I had to get hold of it. And I did - in audiobook format. As I only listen to audiobooks in short chunks these days (I used to listen in the car, but I'm hardly ever in the car at the moment) it's taken me nearly a month to get through the 13 plus hours, superbly read by Paul Shelley. But my goodness what an enjoyable time I've had with this brilliant novel.
The scapegoat of the title is an Englishman named John. He's a great francophile, a lecturer in French history and a perfect French speaker. As the novel begins, he's getting towards the end of his summer break driving round France, and has ended up in Le Mans. John is not a happy man - his life is empty of love and of purpose, and he's planning to spend a few days at a nearby monastery to try to sort himself out. He's sitting rather morosely in a bar when a man taps him on the shoulder - and when he turns he is shocked to see a perfect copy of himself. Yes, totally perfect. I'm not sure how possible this is, but you have to suspend your disbelief, which is easy to do as the story carries you forward so enthrallingly.
The other man turns out to be Jean, Comte de Gué. He invites his English double to join him for a drink, then for a meal, then for a final night cap in his hotel room. The next thing John knows, it is morning and there is no sign of the Comte. What's more, his clothes, his belongings and his car have disappeared, to be replaced by Jean's belongings. A pleasant chap called Gaston arrives, who turns out to be the Comte's chauffeur and valet, come to take his master back to the chateau. John tries to make him understand the substitution, but Gaston thinks he's just confused and hung over. So he allows himself to be taken to the chateau, where he encounters the family. They greet him with varying degrees of pleasure, while he tries hard to work out who on earth these people are. There are many pitfalls involved in this process, but gradually he sorts out their relationship to Jean - there's his 10-year-old daughter, Marie-Noelle, his pregnant wife Françoise, his brother Paul and Paul's attractive wife Renée, his sister Blanche, and his old mother, Madame la Contesse.
He discovers some wrapped presents in Jean's luggage, obviously intended for the family, and hands them out at dinner, with some very unfortunate results. Renée unwraps a very sexy nightdress and is obviously shocked, embarrassed, and angry, and Paul, to his fury, gets a book on curing impotence. As for Blanche, she is surprised to be handed a package simply marked 'B', which turns out to be a bottle of very expensive perfume - it slowly becomes clear that this is intended for someone else, as Blanche and Jean have not spoken for fifteen years. It's not long before John meets the intended recipient, a charming woman called Bela, who lives in the nearby town, and is clearly Jean's mistress. By now John has given up trying to convince anyone that he is not who they think he is, and sets about feeling his way into the various relationships with the family.
It's not hard to imagine the many potential disasters that threaten John in the coming days, but as he gets to know the family and learns of their various problems, both personal and economic, he sets out to set things to rights. It's a surprisingly nail-biting business with initially mixed results. His greatest help in all this is little Marie-Noelle, whose innocent love and trust, plus her childlike willingness to talk openly about various family matters, endear her to him greatly. By the end of a week, many obstacles have been overcome, and he feels great satisfaction at having set most people on the path to greater happiness in life. The whole atmosphere of the chateau changes for the better and John settles in to looking forward to a contented future. But....
I was totally gripped by all this. There are so many occasions on which John is in grave danger of revealing his real identity - how's he going to explain why the Conte's dog Cesar growls and barks when he comes near - what's he going to do about the planned day's hunting, when he's never even fired a gun - but he always manages to get out of them all by the skin of his teeth.
I thought I knew what was going to happen in the end, but I was wrong. More than that I cannot say.
There are two films of the book. The one from 1959 starring Alec Guinness, having been made while du Maurier was alive, was presumably approved by her, though it evidently made some changes to the plot. The 2012 version seems to bear little relationship to the original story. So don't bother with the films - read the book!
