The Collector Collector: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author) "I've had a planetful..." (more)
Key Phrases: blue hippopotamus, pickled beetroot, Cruelty Club, Oxford Circus, Manchester United (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Okay, folks, are you ready for a talking bowl? In The Collector Collector author Tibor Fischer has chosen to tell his story from the perspective of an erudite piece of pottery. No mere chachka from Pottery Barn, Fischer's narrator is several hundred years old, has a very long memory, and an astounding command of 5,000 languages. What's more, this bowl has witnessed more human depravity than the Marquis de Sade ever dreamed of: "Things are done in front of me that wouldn't be done in front of pets," it points out. Yet this inanimate object keeps its secrets--until it falls into the hands of Rosa, a London art appraiser with the ability to read the memories of objects and a history that shocks even the usually unflappable urn.

Rosa's sad-sack love life, a kidnapped advice columnist imprisoned in a well, and a kleptomaniac houseguest are just a few of the curve balls Fischer throws into this ribald tale of sex, murder, and frozen iguanas. The Collector Collector will certainly appeal to readers who revel in bad puns, bawdy stories, and wild flights of improbable fancy. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The narrator of this wacky fantasy is a sentient (and garrulous) antique bowl of ancient lineage that has seen virtually everything. Booker Prize nominee Fischer follows The Thought Gang (LJ 5/1/95) and Under the Frog (Free Pr., 1995) with a bawdy romp suitable for readers who are particularly willing to suspend disbelief. Our unusual hero has developed some interesting talents involving shape-shifting, mind reading, and image projection. The bowl is intimately involved in the problems of Rosa, a talented but lovelorn London art appraiser, which include the criminal and sexual goings-on of Nikki, Rosa's uninvited guest. Throughout, the author skillfully stitches farce, social satire, slapstick, and even a bit of romance into a crazy quilt of literary entertainment. Buy where sophisticated whimsy is appreciated.?Starr E. Smith, Marymount Univ. Lib., Arlington, Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Owl Books (July 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805057862
• ISBN-13: 978-0805057867
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #713,443 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Life in a Fischer Bowl, April 25, 2001

By	Mike Stone (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

I enjoyed Fischer's book "The Thought Gang". A lot, actually. Unfortunately, for its first half, "The Collector Collector" did not live up to that book's standards. It lacked its narrative thrust and rollicking sense of humour. Hindsight tells me that I just wasn't getting Fischer's intent. I now see that he wrote a demented, perverted, and hyper-articulate version of "Bridget Jones' Diary", where the female protagonists are as likely to maim and murder their sexual conquests, as fall in love with them. Also, there's a professional matchmaker trapped down a well by a dissatisfied customer, and many frozen iguanas. This is all filtered through the magic-realist perspective of the main character, a 5,000-year-old bowl. Who can read minds. And change shapes. If none of this makes sense to you, I take full blame, for Fischer manages to hold it all together perfectly.

On the surface, there's much here to giggle at, and think about. But underneath all that, there's also a lot of loneliness in the book. People are constantly running from or pushing away romantic partners, for inexplicable reasons. Rosa, in whose London flat much of the action takes place, is desperate for every man she meets to fall in love with her. Contrast this with Nikki, a kleptomaniac/prostitute/houseguest, who doesn't even know what kind of happiness she wants. And then we have our narrator, the bowl, who appears to have witnessed the entirety of human history, and has an endless catalogue of human characteristics stored away, but can't speak with those around him (her?).

There's really not much story here to hang your hat on. The book is a series of quick scenes, tableaus, culled from Rosa and Nikki's everyday life interspersed with stories from the bowl's memory. I found that hard to handle at first, but got used to the style after a while. And in the end, even though I didn't enjoy it as much as "The Thought Gang", I still got a kick out of "The Collector Collector".

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Satirical Imagination, March 4, 2000

By	Richard Cunningham (Mid Atlantic Region) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collector Collector: A Novel (Paperback)

"The Collector Collector" is a veritable, dark comic medley about life, love, success, failure, etc... Fischer, like Tom Robbins (and a semi-obscure writer named J. Joyce) before him, uses unbridled structural imagination and hybridization as the central vehicles to express his protagonist's vaguely normal existence in a sea of eccentricity. This book deserves considerable attention, if nothing else, for the author's choice of narrator; the wise and discerning urn. For all it's whimsical satire, this novel presents deep sobering insight into contemporary society.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly Rabelaisian, February 12, 2000

By	William E Lewis "Raynard Willoughby" (Madison, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collector Collector: A Novel (Paperback)

After reading "Under the Frog," this is the sort of successor that I expected from Tibor Fischer. Where "The Thought Gang" stroked toward Sterne's end of the pool, losing itself (I believe) in an excess of excess, "The Collector Collector" is Rabelaisian through and through. Panurge has become a bowl with a real animus for Gorgon crockery, and his companion (however briefly) is Rosa, not on a journey to Lanternland, but on a quest for just one decent fellow to share her life with (an interesting twist on Rabelais' tale, where it is Panurge who seeks advice on marriage).

There were times I laughed so hard (the Mad Poets collection) that I was incapacitated for many minutes afterward, and there were other times (Rosa alone in her hotel room in Australia, too depressed to do anything but breathe) that I was taken once again at how adept Mr. Fischer is at juxtaposing robust, often black humor with scenes of such unaffected poignancy.

An exquisite book.