Customer Reviews

The Scapegoat

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book after watching the Robert Hamer movie starring Alec Guinnes. This is Daphne Du Maurier's contribution to doppelganger literature, taking its place beside Dostoevsky's The Double, Saramago's novel of the same name, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Nabokov's Despair, Poe's "William Wilson," Conrad's "The Secret Sharer," Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake and others.

It's a good movie, a murder mystery with a happy ending, but it completely distorts and reverses the meaning of Du Maurier's novel, which has neither a murder nor a happy ending. She worked with the filmmakers on this movie--Alex Guinness was her choice--and I'm surprised that she signed off on these changes. Well, not surprised, ($) but disappointed. The novel, like all doppelganger stories, is an allegory about the two sides of human nature, and Du Maurier's ending reveals a very important thing about the double, something that Stevenson also knew--but which Hamer did not: Jekyll can't live without Hyde. Just as there can be no light without darkness, without the evil twin there can be no good twin.

Liked "Rebecca"? You'll LOVE The Scapegoat. Can't buy new anymore; get one of these nice old editions from Amazon and you'll get caught up in a bygone age. Wonder why they never made a movie from this one, it begs for it.

Another book was sent to me in error: "How To Get Clients" by Jeff Slutsky arrived in an envelope stating its contents as "The Scapegoat" by Daphne duMaurier which is the book I had ordered. I responded by your Customer Service dept. by e-mail and received an apology for the error, along with instructions to keep the 'wrong' book. I then received the book I had ordered "The Scapegoat" within another week or so.

Pages of "The Scapegoat" are yellowed and some are stained. However, the binding is secure and no pages are missing.

I only rated the transaction with three stars due to the delay caused by the shipment of the wrong book and because of the less than pristine condition of "The Scapegoat."