The Collector (Back Bay Books)
by John Fowles
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Book Summary Information
Author: John FowlesEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-08-04
ISBN: 0316290238
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780316290234
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Collector (Back Bay Books)
Book Review: "The Collector" will haunt you....
Summary: 5 Stars
Much time has passed since John Fowles, now a major international author, first wrote and published "The Collector", in 1963. In many ways, it was the prequel to a myriad of psychological thrillers (by other writers) involving obsession. Fowles, an enormous success based on this, his first novel, has gone on to a distinguished career and writing that is far more complex and layered than what we encounter here.
That said, reading "The Collector", one cannot help but be impressed at how Fowles sets the story, and how the point of view of the reader is rather voyeuristic -- we see the entire plot by reading the journals of the two protagonists, peering into a series of events they share by contrasting point of view.
Fowles leads us into the story through the eyes of Ferdinand Clegg, a clerk who wins a sum of money in "the pools". He sends his odd relatives off on a global jaunt, and uses the bulk of the money to buy a lonely cottage with a cellar that he turns into a secure prison of sorts. The object of his attention is a young and vibrant art student named Miranda. All his life Clegg (or Caliban, as Miranda dubs him) has collected butterflies. He now means to use his skills as a hunter, curator and collector, to possess Miranda, whom he has been stalking for several months.
In the plotting that is Clegg's, Fowles is remarkably detached from the world, helping his readers see it from the slightly oppressed viewpoint of the British middle class; only Clegg has thoughts and needs suppressed for many years, that are frightening in their focused simplicity. Of the capture of Miranda, Clegg relates:
"It finally ten days later happened as it sometimes does with butterflies. I mean you go to a place where you know you may see something rare and you don't, but the next time not looking for it you see it on a flower right in front of you, handed to you on a plate, as they say."
In reading Clegg's story, the reader feels touched, albeit briefly, by his madness, which is wrapped in the coat of a lonely young man.
The second part of the book allows the reader to come to know Miranda, through her secret journal. As vibrant as Clegg is dull, Miranda has been very caught up in the life of an artist, including her college dabbling with a teacher-type paramour, known to the reader as "G.P.". Much of what is absorbing in Miranda's world ceases with her capture. Her portion of the tale is a struggle with the alternating fear and loathing of Caliban, and the instinctive need to understand him, so that she might use that understanding to seek her freedom. Her faith in God ebbing, her despair and disdain for her captor growing, Miranda's shattered by her captivity. She says of him:
"He's not human; he's an empty space disguised as a human."
Inevitably, at the close of the captivity, the end of the story is told by Caliban, detached from the role he plays in how Miranda's story ends. Freshly shocked from this, the reader begins Chapter 4 unsettled, only to find that Caliban has disconnected from what he's done, and is preparing to do it again by stalking a young girl named Marian. It is this reopening of the cycle of violence and oppression that truly makes your blood run cold, truly introduces you to the brilliance that is Fowles' as a writer.
Your Fowles bookshelf is incomplete without "The Collector". Highly recommended.
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