The Collector (Back Bay Books) [Paperback]

John Fowles (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 4, 1997 | Series: Back Bay Books

Hailed as the first modern psychological thriller, The Collector is the internationally bestselling novel that catapulted John Fowles into the front rank of contemporary novelists. This tale of obsessive love--the story of a lonely clerk who collects butterflies and of the beautiful young art student who is his ultimate quarry--remains unparalleled in its power to startle and mesmerize.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Fowles launched his career with The Collector, which was welcomed with great critical enthusiasm, including that of LJ's reviewer, who found it "a distinguished first novel" (LJ 8/63). Mantissa, on the other hand, was a departure from the author's more popular material and received only a marginal response (LJ 9/1/82).
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Brilliant. An artist of great imaginative power.”
— Sunday Times --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (August 4, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316290238
• ISBN-13: 978-0316290234
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (124 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

62 of 63 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling study of psychology December 11, 1999

By Kazza

Format:Paperback

With the exception of Nabokov's Lolita, this is the best book I have ever read. From the very moment I laid my hands on it I could not put it down and I have re-read it many times since. The premise is as such: a clerk (Frederick Clegg) becomes obsessed with a pretty art student (Miranda Grey) and holds her captive in his basement. Half of the story is told from Clegg's point of view in a recollective style, whilst the rest (the middle section) is relayed through Miranda's diary. The obvious differences in their views on life and the impossibility of them ever reaching a common ground is what grips you. Brilliant characterization and a brilliant study of human behaviour. Many people have suggested that The Magus was Fowle's best work, but The Collector puts it in the shade. Compelling.

72 of 76 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "The Collector" will haunt you.... March 26, 2005

By L. Quido VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

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.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars He Said, She Said June 19, 2001

By Christopher Dudley

Format:Paperback

The Collector was John Fowles's first published novel. It is the tale of a misunderstood nerd named Fred Clegg, a clerk and butterfly collector who wins a substantial sum of money, and Miranda, the beautiful young art student he becomes obsessed with. The first section of the book is written from Fred's point of view, and you get a good view inside the mind of the insane as he makes it seem reasonable, almost inevitable, when he kidnaps her and keeps her prisoner in his hidden basement. Even though it is obvious that he is mad, the reader can't help but feel some sympathy for him, even as he deteriorates into his criminal acts.

The suspense of the novel is very well done, and from the beginning, it's hard to put the book down. Fred tells Miranda his name is Ferdinand, because he thinks the name sounds more sophisticated and exotic. So we have Ferdinand and Miranda. Get it? We got it. Evidently, so did Miranda, because in the second section of the novel we get her point of view, and she refers to him as Caliban in the journal she keeps during her captivity.

Much is made of the class difference between the two in their own point of view narratives. Fred kidnaps Miranda because he doesn't have a chance with girls of her type, and in her captivity, she comes to know him, and they have a strange relationship of jailer and prisoner, tormentor and victim. As she comes to know him, she finds herself almost seeking his company as the only human being she has seen since he took her. But she is still held prisoner, as much a part of his collection as the butterflies pinned to his display trays.

The pacing of the book is so quick, it was over before I knew it. The writing is intense, and the point of view of the captive and captor are both explored in a startlingly realistic, in-depth character study, examining human emotion, connections, religion, art, and the driving need for freedom. The ending is foreshadowed from the beginning, so although it's not really a surprise, the suspense of following the events from both perspectives keeps the reader riveted.