Many (most?) of us may've wondered, at some point or other, how our life would've been if we were actually living not our own life but the life of another, known or unknown, person. We've just a hazy idea of such a 'substitute' life, usually focusing on the more rosy aspects, and either totally ignoring (or ignorant of) the travails, or (consciously or unconsciously) glossing over such potentially unpleasant aspects to keep the 'desirable' quality intact. This 'what would've happened' question is what Daphne du Maurier, more famous as the author or the legendary 'Rebecca' and 'Birds', sets our to investigate in this complex novel.
The story starts with a suspenseful move, as a rakish French landed aristocrat Jean meets his doppelganger, an English teacher John touring France and, after peddling John copious amounts of alcohol, scrams with John's 'identity', leaving him sleeping in his hotel room. Then starts the 'will he, won't he' game, to guess the point upto which the humble John will carry forward the deception, either willingly or by force of circumstances, or give up and (at least try to) go home.
As things start to happen rapidly in the week or so over which the story unfolds, John goes about the charade first reluctantly and then with a sense of mission to 'heal' the inhabitants of Jean's chateau, the family members, each of whom Jean seems to have treated badly in different ways. Initially, John seems more a victim of the circumstances than a willing imposter, just going along with things to keep up the pretenses so as not to hurt the family members. But by and by he starts to take a more active role to 'set things right' as he - sometimes misguidedly it seems - deems best. He does flinch away from some hard decisions at first, giving morphine to the old mother, and negotiating a hugely disadvantageous contract with the main customer of the family's glassworks just to keep it afloat.
It's only after Jean's pregnant wife commits suicide, after his pre-teen daughter has run away from home (though later found at the glassworks), that John resolves to take things into his own hands and takes some decisions to the decisive benefit of all family members. At that point, inevitably, Jean comes back and John, after failing to bump him off, is forced to make his exit from the scene, after saying goodbyes to Jean's mistress Bela who had probably seen through him anyway.
While the story itself is pretty interesting, almost a page turner, the underlying philosophical aspects are what impart it a certain unique quality. Looking deeper, it seems that, rather than a story of two characters with diametrically opposite nature and behaviours, it's actually about the different personalities hidden within us all. And how we choose to bring one or the other - sometimes parts of both - to the surface, sometimes to deal with different people or circumstances and sometimes on a whim. John cannot always get away with being the 'goody-goody' benefactor to all, sometimes - for instance during the bird shoot - coming across to others (notably to Jean's younger brother Paul, almost all the time) as a bumbling idiot or worse, as an insensitive prick, mostly for no fault of his! This dichotomy is brought out well towards the end - when John condemns Jean as evil, Bela tries to impress upon him that Jean also has some good qualities and does love his family after all.
And these are the two axes - the futility of aspiring for 'a different life', and the co-existence of both good an evil within a person - on which this excellent novel spins. Good as an engaging story, and great as a 'look within' tale.
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