The Scapegoat is certainly a very curious novel. Its premise (two physically identical strangers met and change roles) is in no way believable. And Du Maurier's writing style can be described as elegent yet a bit dull. However for some inexplicable reason The Scapegoat is a memorable read; I found myself completely taken in by the story despite its silly premise.

To understand why, I think the answer lies beneath the surface of the story. After the two physically identical men switch roles, Du Maurier focuses attention on the lonely, nice professor who is suddenly forced into the role of a French landowner, businessman and ... cruel monster. It's fascinating how he pulls off not only the role reversal but digs into the twisted hearts of the people (spouse, family and friend) around him. I found the emotional, humane side of the story to be most compelling.

Bottom line: a ridiculous story made fascinating and memorable by the ever talented Ms. Du Maurier. However I fear the author's style in slowly building the story might turn people away before they reach page 50.

One thing I admire about Du Maurier is her ability to take well-worn plot ideas and give them a fascinating new twist -- for example, time travel in House on the Strand. In Scapegoat, a story of switched identities, we step into the world of a postwar French aristocrat not just as readers but as the despairing English scholar who takes on the man's freedoms as well as his responsibilities. A very satisfying read.

The Scapegoat is one of Du Maurier's finest works. Du Maurier has a way of developing her characters with the most thoughful insight. I could not put the book down until I had read it all!

THIS BOOK WAS PRETTY GOOD AND HAD A GREAT DEAL OF DETAIL! I WOULD RECOMMEND IT FOR ANYONE!

The title story of this collection is the story from which Alfred Hitchcock based his famous movie "The Birds". This movie is NOTHING like the story, and it is this original story that brings the terror home in a far more stark and chilling manner.

The story evolves around a farmer and his family in an isolated part of England. The birds gather and attack in more and more numbers as the story progresses, and the tale details the fear the family feels and the lengths they must go to to save their own lives. It is a marvellously crafted story, and one of the greatest realistic horror tale you will ever read. You will never look at birds which flock close to you in the same way again.

This is still available in England, go to Amazon.co.uk if you don't have luck with the US Amazon. This book is an amazing collection of fantasy and horror by a woman who had an amazing imagination paired with a real skill for writing.

The title story is where Hitchcock got the theme and title for the film, and little else. The Birds takes place on an English farm, and is a great tale of isolation and terror. The Old Man is marvellous, with a terrific twist that makes me envy those who are to read it for the first time. Kiss Me Again, Stranger gave me nightmares, even though the horror is only implied. There's not a weak story in the bunch, and this is definitely du Maurier's strongest collection of short fiction.

It's a pity the editorial opinion doesn't match the general positivity of the customer reviews! I personally felt this was a very GOOD story. Well laid out. I can't really tell about the story, because most of the thrill of reading Daphne du M's work is figuring it out as you go, piecing together the bits and coming out with a peculiar and always wonderful ending. She had to be the master of endings. Anyway, this is a good story. I got it from the library while I was working last year and took it along sometimes to read between breaks and at lunch and stuff. I loved the way that all along you felt as if the book was heading toward one thing... then that was suddenly resolved and it went in a somewhat different direction. I recommend it highly.

I've just finished reading the book for the second time. I've read it my own language first and now (4 years later) in english.
This is a book that forces you to read it. Once you've started, you can't wait to read what's on the next page. The book felt so real, I was in Armino's head: I saw through his eyes, heard through his ears and smelled through his nose. I felt myself chased by the police and I felt like never willing to let go of my brother again. Now that there's nothing left for me to read in the book, I still feel I'm inside it. Wondering about what's coming next, as Armino will be wondering now what to do. It will take a lifetime to forget everything that happened.

No. It's not Rebecca, but since Rebecca is considered one of the greatest books ever written, it would be hard for anyone to top it. I found The Flight of the Falcon a great story. It captures the feel of Italy as well as it holds you from page to page. I think any du Maurier is good reading. It isn't fair to compare everything she writes to Rebecca. It WAS a masterpiece, but her brilliance came through in almost every piece of her work. Flight of the Falcon has a lot of mystery and intrigue and deserves to be read by any suspense/mystery fan.

ONE OF THE FEW POSITIVE ACCOUNTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION I HAVE READ

Daphne du Maurier has written a very moving, fictionalised account of her family during the time of the French Revolution. The historical detail is fascinating, and the family relationships are marvelously done. You can "hear" the voices of the characters, smell the smoke from the glass house and from the guns in war, feel the pain of loss, and the bittersweet quality of victory and reunion. This book should be required reading for studies of both the French Revolution and human nature

The Loving Spirit is the most underated novel by Daphne Du Maurier. In her first published novel Daphne's characters, especially the women, are multidimensional with many desires, the strongest being to follow their heart and remain true to their spirit. With four generations of family, each character gets closer to the truth and living a life that fulfills their inner needs and that of their soul. Rich in romance, wit, adventure and also very much a spiritual book, even for it's time period, The Loving Spirit should be read by all DuMaurier fans and those wanting to change their paths in life and look within themselves.

I think the book birds von Daphne du Maurier is a good short novel. It's a little bit short, but that is not really bad. Because of the shortness, the book can't become boring.
I like that the story is mysterious. The attack from the birds is
inexplicable. It's not the usual behaviour of birds. But in spite of them, the story is believable, because the attack is possible. The birds are able to kill a woman or a man. If the animals were worms or something else, then story would be unbelievable and stupid.
Another thing I like is the relation from the birds and the nature. The birds stand in this book for all nature disaster. It's just an other representation. I think it's a ingenious representaion.
The book is timeless. Daphne du Maurier wrote this book brief after the second world war. It also have a relation to the war. And today the book get read again and again. In some years the book will probably be as popular as now.

I think the book is well written. There are a lot of tension and the tension is kept throughout the whole book. The situation of Nat and his family is shown well because you just see Nat's point of view and so you know how he sees that crazy situation of having millions of birds attack his family. You can feel the danger of the bird attacks and the fear and the helpness of the whole population.
I think the story isn't very difficult to understand. It's written in an easy English. Alfred Hitchcock took the idea of the birds' attacks from Du Maurier and made a great film out of it. But the story is very different from the book - only the bird's attack ia still the same.

This is a well written book with vivid descriptions of places and people. Maybe I was expecting too much. It was a little more dark and depressing than I would have liked for a vacation read, and it held nowhere near the suspense and intrigue as Rebecca (one of my favorites). It never really made me care for the lead character (Mary) - I just kept feeling that everything she did was stupid and for no reason. It was also very predictable since you know who is going to turn out to be the bad guy as he is the only other character you've been introduced to.

Not duMaurier's best.

As this story opens, Mary Yellan's mother dies leaving this young adult on her own in a dangerous time. On her deathbed her mother tells her to go live with her Aunt Patience at an inn called Jamaica Inn near the Cornish coast (Corwall, England). Immediately upon arrival at Jamaica Inn she knows something is wrong since her once colorful Aunt Patience has turned into a simpering wimp and her Uncle Joss Merlyn is a towering cruel character with dubious past and present. Soon Mary learns about criminal activities surrounding Jamaica Inn and it's inhabitants. She is drawn into a mystery so intense and frightening that she'll brave the trecherous moors to escape.

This is one Daphne Du Maurier's best books. Don't miss this tale of twisted greed and terrible peril -- this is an EXCELLENT book that'll keep you up past your bedtime as you won't be able to put this book down! Buy it! This book earned itself a permanent place on my shelf!

It may be becasue I am an inexperienced reader, or I do not appreciate the more complex novels - only simple plots, or that this is the first Daphne DuMaurier book that I have read, or that I am under 13 (used this review sheet for children) or that it is the most recent book I have finished (well there are a lot of "well it may be because"s, so I will get on with the review) but I think that this book is the best one that Daphne DuMaurier has written. She never goes over the top with description, or never reveals too much or too little (if it's a mysterious character) about a person's personality. She does everything just right, and weaves the words of the book brilliantly.
In my personal opinion the part where Mary was taken to the shore (I won't reveal too much) dragged on a bit. I kept loosing my place in the book and I found it didn't really matter where I started reading again, but that was just one chapter.

For some reason I think that this book is good to read on holiday, somewhere in Britain, even if it's not Bodmin where this book is set (well, Jamaica Inn is near Bodmin anyway).

Auerbach, a professor of literature at University of Pennsylvania, dazzles the reader with her fascination for the writings of Daphne Du Maurier, the writer unfortunately best known for the so-called Gothic novel, 'Rebecca'and various film adaptations like Hitchcock's 'The Birds' and Roeg's 'Don't Look Now'.
As a young summer camp participant in the early 50s, Auerbach found herself both entranced by Du Maurier's vicious protagonists and repulsed by her label as a 'romantic' writer of escapist woman's fiction. Her analysis of Du Maurier's work vehemently disputes Du Maurier's dismissal by critics; Auerbach finds her male centered stories brimming with fully drawn characters that derive their strength from a violent/murderous reaction to the females who enter their lives. Du Maurier's female narrators (1st person or otherwise) depend upon their omnipotent male counterparts for identity; the so-called romances of Rebecca, Jamaica Inn and Frenchman's Creek are not driven by love as they are erroneously depicted in the corresponding movie adaptations, but revolve around the transition of the female acquiescing to the strength of the male and becoming dependent on him for identity and definition. These female protagonists, like Du Maurier, herself, initially possess the characteristics of young boys and only become women by losing their independence. Above all, Auerbach describes Du Maurier's haunted inheritance: the necessity of keeping of her heritage alive as initiated by her grandfather George, author of 'Trilby' and her actor father ,Gerald.

This is not a biography of Daphne Du Maurier, but rather a literary critique of her many novels and fantastic short stories. As it relates to Du Maurier's fiction, Auerbach eludes to Du Maurier's penchant towards lesbianism, citing Margaret Forster's book, "Daphne Du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller" as her source. She analyzes the movie adaptations, finding Hitchcock's 'Rebecca', 'Jamaica Inn' and 'The Birds' inferior to the original thoughts as penned by the author, herself.

As I have found myself compelled over the years to reread Daphne Du Maurier's lesser known masterpieces, like 'The House on the Strand', 'The Scapegoat', and 'My Cousin Rachel', I fully understand Auerbach's fascination with the author and the strange almost spellbinding hold she has over her readers. I recommend this book to anyone who has been under the Du Maurier spell and realizes that she is much, much more than just a escapist romance writer. Like Patricia Highsmith, her amoral comments on male/female relationships wickedly define the 20th century.

Du Maurier is the author of almost twenty novels, articles, plays, memoirs and short stories; yet is known for a relatively limited handful of popular works. Daphne Du Maurier: Haunted Heiress analyzes her lesser-known volumes and their characters, providing a strong literary analysis of metaphors in her writing, and ethnic and social observations of her choices and times. The result is a revealing, absorbing study.

This book is a great complement to du Maurier's fiction. Auerbach has written a very personal account of du Maurier's life and its relation to her writing. I liked the intimate tone of the book, as if you were talking to Auerbach over coffee; there is nothing over-blown or haughty. Auerbach's analysis of how du Maurier's stories were (mis-)adapted for film is brilliant, as well as Auerbach's discussion about du Maurier's sexuality and prejudices. Quite enjoyable.

But if anyone asked me what these stories were about I would not be able to tell them. I remember the titles and some of the details but not the stories. Way over my head. And I am a pretty well-read person so it's not that I'm just not a reader. I wouldn't recommend this really highly because her novels are so much better. Try The King's General, The House on the Strand.

At First I had a little problem reading the book, because so many words were explained. Gradually it went easier and I started to like reading it 
It was so exciting- Sometimes I was so strained that I couldn't stop reading 
When I read the end, I was very surprised but also a bit disappointed. At first I didn't like it, because it sounded so unreal and I hoped that everything turns a good way, but now I think it's not that bad. You didn't expect this ending, that's a good point for liking it.
It's not a extraordinary book which I recommend reading in your spare time, but for school it's ok.

Classic Du Maurier! "A Borderline Case" was my favorite, with the title story ("Don't Look Now") a close second. The very best mystery/suspense/romance author!

I have been an avid Daphne du Maurier fan for 30 years. I had never read this book until a couple of weeks ago. I found it very disappointing and boring. Her books usually have that "du Maurier" feel to them, but not so in this case. She was a brilliant writer but this did not grab me at all. Her last novel.

This book has been sitting in my basement for quite, and has always intrigued me because of its plot, which is that the United States and the UK have merged because of some international crisis, which unfortunately the book never really explains. Written during the height of the Cold War, the book is strong on British nationalism and anti-Americanism. That's not my thing, but the characters are quite good. The old woman who runs the family that the book is set around is quite colorful, and she manages to carry out her own little war against the "enemy" American troops that have occupied her little hamlet. It's a good read. Check it out if you have time.