Customer Reviews

Collectors: A Novel

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

 

 

The elegant, hypnotic prose is marred by an utterly unbelievable female main character. The underlying message here seems to be "the victim was asking for it." A nasty, cold little book that will leave the reader dashing out to find something else to read that will take away the lingering aftertaste of this one.

We know from the beginning Jean is the type of person who attracts danger, and when she meets Stephen Cain this becomes a fact. I found little to like in either character, and couldn't understand why anyone such as Jean would still want to be around Stephen after he slammed her hand in the car door. However, knowing her past of seeking dangerous situations, maybe it gave her a thrill.

Yes, the story was suspenseful in the beginning but seemed to end in a very boring, expected way. If you like predictable stories this one is for you. There wasn't much guesswork here!

Paul Griner's heroine, Jean, is a fascinating character. Her motives are eccentric, her past is fuzzy (she had "episodes" after a mysterious fire she set with her cousin), she seems to be very beautiful and unapproachable, as if she is holding something back. She meets the even more eccentric Stephen Cain and falls for him, possibly because the games Stephen plays are as dangerous as the childhood games she played with her cousin. They get together on Stephen's sailboat, they have surprising sex, Stephen breaks her hand in her car door and doesn't seem to be sorry.

What is intensely menacing about Griner's novel (his first after an also adroit story collection, FOLLOW ME) is that the reader knows something awful is going to happen. Jean learns that Steven is a widower. The distant widower is a popular character in thrillers, but Griner's pacing and the precision of his characters--the precision that is nicely foreshadowed in Jean's trips to the flea market and her conning of pen vendors ("it is all in the eyes")--allows him to slowly display horrific surprises about the motives of both characters. The last pages of the book were extremely well-done and mysterious and filled me with a palpable sense of dread because I cared for Jean. A fast, engaging, and tense read.

I found this book to be so haunting that I read it a second time. I enjoyed it even more as I picked up some strange feelings about Jeans childhood friend. I feel that the friend set her up by not warning her. She said that she invited Jean to come to her wedding after thinking about the games they used to play.

Think this could be a very good movie if they can create the atmosphere the way the book has. I found myself fascinated by the bargaining sessions for pens and binoculars. Will continue to be on the lookout for more novels by this very interesting writer.

She collects fountain pens, and he collects binoculars. Two collectors whose paths cross. Destiny? It would seem so, and the players seem to play out their roles dutifully. Jean Duprez meets handsome Steven at her friend Claudia's wedding. As children Jean and Claudia used to dare each other to do some frightening things, death-defying things. And now Jean takes up with Steven, a mysterious man who seems to like her yet is indifferent to her. Is this relationship an extension of Jean's risk taking behavior? And there is the strange fetish the author has with perfumes and colognes. People seem to be identified by smell rather than appearance.

When you read this book you keep wondering where the story is going. That's the intriguing part. Well, you will know soon enough where the plot is leading as this is a short story that is literally writ large. Our clever book publishers have once again found a way to puff a novella up to look like a full-length novel. Wide spacing causes your eyes to make a giant leap from one line to the next. Actually it does have the flavor of a good short story, a form the author is very familiar with. It's a fine read that will easily fill up a lunch break, providing yours is an hour long. After reading it you can put the book on your coffee table to impress people with your ability to spend lots of money on a small book.

I loved this book. I couldn't put it down.

This is a book about obsession. The two main characters are obsessive personalities and have found an outlet for their obsessive nature by collecting things. Jean collects pens. Stephen collects binoculars. When they meet, their obsessive natures find them drawn to one another.

You sense impending disaster from the start and it keeps you enthralled until the end. I simply could not put the book down.

Griner's writing is sparse yet rich... a brilliant combination. I can't get enough of this writer's work.

If you want to read more of his work, you can read an excerpt from his latest novel in Southeast Review. Griner's writing is even richer than it was in Collectors. I hope this novel is published soon...

here's a good weekend novel; does not take a long time to read and captures your attention full-force. one knows something is going to happen and it will be something creepy so one's attention is never diverted by extraneous descriptions and gratuitous verbosity. the characters don't have much dimension (or physical description) but that somehow helps in the success of the suspense. i don't want to reveal anything about the circumstances of this novel; but i do want to suggest it as a good recreational read for those who enjoy a bit of suspense without a lot of violence.

The chief reason I read this book is because Tobias Wolff offered praise for this writer. I found the writing and the pace wonderful. I felt the author sacrificed direct story telling for mood and ambiance especially at the end and this was really disappointing. For people who liked this book, I so strongly recommend Susanna Moore's IN THE CUT. Please read it. Talk about a satisfying, not run-of-the-mill mystery. Terrific. I will certainly read Mr. Griner's earlier collection of short stories and keep an eye open for any new books, but I really hope he is not one who thinks that satisfying a reader's baser instincts is beneath the job of a writer.

Sadly, I was disappointed by this novel. First, the fine British author Ian McEwan's name is dropped on the rear cover, which raises an automatic comparison, and tricks anyone who has enjoyed McEwan's work into being interested in this book. (They got me.) The cover art bears a stylistic resemblance to Ian McEwan's books also, which I'm sure was the result of intelligent marketing strategy. I have read all of McEwan's work, and I find him talented, skilled in both the novel and short story forms, and relevant, even though a not too slight cultural difference exists for Americans who read British fiction.

This was my first reading of Paul Griner. I found his primary characters (Jean, Steve, and Claudia) less interesting and more incompletely drawn than McEwan's, and lacking in either real conflict or motivation. Maybe it was the author's intention that the character's motives remained unclear, and, that they be drawn in a more superficial manner, a la the short story form. But this did not work for me. The backstory of Jean's and Claudia's childhood, including the traumatic incident they shared, was not of elemental importance to the present-day events Jean experienced, unless I "missed the boat."

I was interested in finishing Collectors only because I believed it would build momentum and get better. I did not find that to be so. Maybe it will take a second reading, and I am willing to do that.

I suggest readers check out The Cement Garden, The Innocent, and The Comfort of Strangers, all by Ian McEwan. Mr. Griner's Collectors is most similar in plot and theme to The Comfort of Strangers, I think. (I have recommended or spoken admiringly of The Cement Garden and The Innocent on at least one hundred occasions. I regard each of them as "the book I wish I'd written.")

The one thing I got from this book was: as an aspiring novelist, this novel is proof that maybe it is not so difficult to break through and get published after all.