Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

The Collector

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 14,361 ratings · 931 reviews

Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. He is obsessed with a beautiful stranger, the art student Miranda. When he wins the pools he buys a remote Sussex house and calmly abducts Miranda, believing she will grow to love him in time. Alone and desperate, Miranda must struggle to overcome her own prejudices and contempt if she...more

Paperback, 288 pages

Published October 21st 1998 by Random House (Vintage) (first published January 1st 1963)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Books of the 20th Century

379th out of 4,639 books — 31,438 voters

The Most Disturbing Book Ever Written

58th out of 936 books — 3,328 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 3,000)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Dec 23, 2011 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Bonnie by: Beverly J.

Shelves: 1001, full-of-wonderful, eek-the-creepies, adult, literary-fiction, tough-subjects

Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog!

’I am one in a row of specimens. It’s when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I’m meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive, but it’s the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead.’

The Collector is the story of Frederick Clegg, an extremely odd and lonely man who also collects butterflies. He’s obsessed with a middle-class art student named Miranda Grey and as he cont...more Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog!

’I am one in a row of specimens. It’s when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I’m meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive, but it’s the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead.’

The Collector is the story of Frederick Clegg, an extremely odd and lonely man who also collects butterflies. He’s obsessed with a middle-class art student named Miranda Grey and as he continues admiring her from a distance a plan slowly starts developing in his mind that he would like to have her; like one of his butterflies. He makes preparations by buying a house out in the country, purchasing assorted objects and things he knows she will need, convinced that if he can only capture her and keep her that she will slowly grow to love him.

The first part of the novel was told from Ferdinand’s point of view and it was rather alarming at his thought process. In his mind, there is nothing morally wrong with what he intends to do (and what he actually ends up doing). He recognizes that Miranda is a human being as he takes care of her and provides her everything a human would possibly need, but she’s inevitably nothing more than an object or a collectible item to him. He doesn’t mean to harm her at first; however, it’s evident that as time progresses, he enjoys having power over her and almost finds humor in her attempts to escape.

The second part of the novel was told from Miranda’s point of view through diary entries that she hides underneath her mattress. She writes about G.P. often, a man she met and who ended up having a huge impact on her thoughts and ideals. To Miranda, G.P. was everything she wanted to be and his opinions and thoughts became a set of ‘rules’ for her. At first I had a hard time determining the relevancy of these recollections, but it essentially just became another disturbing piece of the story to see how influential G.P. and his ‘rules’ really were to Miranda.

’He’s made me believe them; it’s the thought of him that makes me feel guilty when I break the rules.’

It was almost expected, however still just as shocking when it becomes glaringly obvious that Miranda slowly begins to take pity on her captor. She starts feeling bad for the harsh things she says to him and she also unconsciously prevents herself from doing him excessive harm during an escape attempt as she feels that if she does she’s descending to his level…It was as if she had simply accepted her situation, and that was the most heartbreaking part.

’And yes, he had more dignity than I did then and I felt small, mean. Always sneering at him, jabbing him, hating him and showing it. It was funny, we sat in silence facing each other and I had a feeling I’ve had once or twice before, of the most peculiar closeness to him—not love or attraction or sympathy in any way. But linked destiny. Like being shipwrecked on an island—a raft—together. In every way not wanting to be together. But together.’

The third and fourth parts of the novel were the most disturbing parts of the entire book. Suffice it to say, it gave me goosebumps. It was not the ending I had anticipated, but I still felt that the author was successful in creating the everlasting effect I believe he intended. Obviously, you understand the severity of Ferdinand’s actions; however, not until the end do you fully understand just how abnormal he really is. This was certainly not a happy book, but one that I’m glad to have read and one that I will likely not forget.(less)

23 likes · like · see review

Oct 13, 2011 Evan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009-reads, tami-tomes, __in-my-collection, fowles

A great pal of mine, who shall remain nameless, is a collector. Truly and obsessively one. His house is filled from floor to ceiling with records and CDs and other bric a brac. It's a very large, sprawling ranch with a half floor up as well as a basement. It should be a spacious and roomy abode, but when you walk in there it's like squeezing through the Fat Man's misery section of Mammoth Cave - you have to turn sideways to get through. He shares this space with a half dozen cats. It's filthy. R...more A great pal of mine, who shall remain nameless, is a collector. Truly and obsessively one. His house is filled from floor to ceiling with records and CDs and other bric a brac. It's a very large, sprawling ranch with a half floor up as well as a basement. It should be a spacious and roomy abode, but when you walk in there it's like squeezing through the Fat Man's misery section of Mammoth Cave - you have to turn sideways to get through. He shares this space with a half dozen cats. It's filthy. Reading this, I wondered too if he might have a lady squirreled away in the basement, but dismissed this notion. There is simply no room down there to do any such thing, every inch is piled with stuff. He compares himself to the Collyer brothers (see Wikipedia), whose obsession with collecting proved fatal.

And so it is in Fowles' "The Collector," but how that is so constitutes a spoiler. There were no spoilers in it for me, as I'd seen the William Wyler 1965 film for the first time in the early '70s on TV, and I think what caught my eye and kept my interest then was lovely Samantha Eggar, as Miranda, a role in which she was well cast. I think she captured the character of the book. I've since seen the movie again and it holds up, though reading the book I think that Terence Stamp may have been too glamorous looking to play the role of "The Collector."

The film is a very faithful adaptation, at least as the story itself goes, but is structurally different, since the book take a His vs. Hers approach to the telling of it, which is not the strategy of the film, that simply incorporates both these into a straightforward narrative.
So yeah, I'm reading it and the story seems to end halfway through and I begin Miranda's diary and I begin to think, goddamn, I have to read this story all over again?! Son of a bitch. But it's a very clever trope and in many ways Miranda doesn't make a very good case for herself in her diary account. She's young and arrogant just the kind of snob that the collector ascertains. None of this justifies what he does to her, of course, and that's one of the strengths of the book, toying at the readers' sympathies for both characters. They're both unlikeable, and yet one feels for both of them. The collector has a complex repressive psychology - he knows what he wants, but doesn't. And she is highly impressionable, as her accounts of longing for her insufferable mentor, the Picasso-like womanizing artist, G.P., suggests. The battle of wits here is good, and is well handled in the movie as well. I had hoped that Fowles would not have stated so obviously (through Miranda's voice) that the collector was someone who treated her the same way as the butterflies in his collection, in such an aloof way, under glass, suffocating and snuffing out what he supposedly loved. This is easy enough to glean without the author's help. And this is the way I feel about my friend, the record collector - he has tens of thousands of LPs, but cannot play them, won't listen to them. How can one ever choose from such a collection? Merely the having of them sates him, for the moment, for he is never sated. What does he want out of it? He doesn't know. He has the object, but can't ever fully appreciate the true essence of what's inside it - the music.
And so it is with the collector, whose idealized view of Miranda trumps the reality of who she is.

So, yes, this is a great story, well and cleverly told in plain language, often with thoughtful insights. And yet, somehow, I never felt like I was in the presence of great literature - even though I felt I was in the presence of a writer capable of it. Perhaps the dispassionate tone of the collector's account made me feel this (and yet Graham Greene is largely dispassionate and I feel great passion in his work). Fowles' partisans suggest that "The Magus" is his great contribution to literature, so someday hopefully I can check that out. Anyway I'm still absorbing what I've read, so all the aspects of the book I'd like to comment on will likely be unstated. I tend to move on.. (like the collector??)(less)

22 likes · like · see review

Mar 03, 2013 Petra X rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2013-reviews

I read this when I was very young. Young enough that anything with a sexual connotation was interesting to me. Even really perverse deviations like this.

A collector of butterflies 'collects' a girl and holds her prisoner. His deviation is far deeper than merely sex. But of course, sex is implied all the time.

There are two sorts of kept women, those gold-diggers who actively sought it, and those trophy wives who had never planned for it and had been actively courted. This is a trophy wife by for...more

47 likes · like · see review

Aug 13, 2012 smetchie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-me-an-ick-feeling

Impotent sociopath kidnaps beautiful art student. Told (partly) from the sociopath's perspective. That's my jam! I should have loved this book!
But something left me cold. I suppose it may have been all the bitching and complaining the beautiful art student did in her stupid diary. What a helpless twit!
Not to imply that I'd be brave and cunning or anything...if someone kidnapped me. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'd be a helpless twit as well. But I'll be goddamned if I'd expect anyone to enjoy readi...more

18 likes · like · see review

Mar 06, 2013 Bethan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: regular-fiction

Easy to read, from the perspective of an uneducated butterfly collector who is rich from winning the football pools and the diary entries of the beautiful 20-year-old Slade art school student that he kidnaps, and quite riveting, at first this story managed to creep me out and scare me. Like Miranda, his victim, I loathed the 'collector' of the title, alternating with some pity. He was so unattractive, empty, and neurotic about sex. He was probably a psychopath since he had feelings of his own bu...more Easy to read, from the perspective of an uneducated butterfly collector who is rich from winning the football pools and the diary entries of the beautiful 20-year-old Slade art school student that he kidnaps, and quite riveting, at first this story managed to creep me out and scare me. Like Miranda, his victim, I loathed the 'collector' of the title, alternating with some pity. He was so unattractive, empty, and neurotic about sex. He was probably a psychopath since he had feelings of his own but he didn't have empathy for her: she was an object to him for his needs. It is a genius portrait of a character by Fowles.

I liked the names having analogies with The Tempest – Ferdinand/Caliban and Miranda. He wants to be Ferdinand (but is not; his real name is Frederick, while she calls him Caliban). I thought the analogy of Frederick being a collector of butterflies and how that matches what he does to Miranda was very well done.

Miranda could be annoying herself. Sometimes I didn't find her diary entries very interesting because they were reiterating what I had already learnt from Frederick's account, and sometimes because I didn't find her especially captivating since she was a bit shallow but perhaps it's actually quite realistic in a way.

There is a lot of class stuff in this book. Frederick's insecurity and resentment of the lah-di-dahs (which I recognise so well from my own father) along with Miranda's loathing and resentment of those people she sees as small and lacking in 'higher' things like appreciation for art, perception, spirituality. I wonder how much of this is Fowles expressing his own thoughts about this through Miranda, while Frederick's emptiness and desire to have a woman just for himself, too, is understandable (Fowles was seen as reclusive, according to a biography, but it is total speculation on my part that Fowles is expressing a fantasy there too - I subscribe to the idea that sometimes fiction is a 'safe' place for an author to put what cannot be expressed in real life).

Overall, a fascinating and deceptively simple book. 4.5/5.(less)

5 likes · like · see review

Feb 16, 2009 L.S. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

I found this book very hard to put down. If I did not have to go to work I would have read it in 1 day, 2 at the most. It is a thriller. It is pathological. It is human. I am listening to synesthesia by porcupine tree. At first sight I did not like the ending, I was expecting something more. But I realized that this is not a romance or a love story, this is life. It is a perfect ending, it is like the end of a Hollywood movie in which the psychopath is out there and ready to find another victim....more

10 likes · like · see review

Jul 05, 2010 J.A. Saare rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Other reviewers have said what I would say about The Collector. It's haunting, disturbing, and impossible to forget once you've finished. While not a typical "horror" story, it is one that probably occurs more often in the real world than not, and the person(s) involved could be a distant relative, a sibling, a son or a daughter.

Allow me to state right now that it's not an easy read. As someone who derives enjoyment from books of this nature, I was determined to remain objective from the onset....more Other reviewers have said what I would say about The Collector. It's haunting, disturbing, and impossible to forget once you've finished. While not a typical "horror" story, it is one that probably occurs more often in the real world than not, and the person(s) involved could be a distant relative, a sibling, a son or a daughter.

Allow me to state right now that it's not an easy read. As someone who derives enjoyment from books of this nature, I was determined to remain objective from the onset. I wanted Frederick to earn my disdain, just as I wanted Miranda to garner my sympathy and support.

Little did I know just how masterfully John Fowles would pen the book.

Written in four sections, you are given Frederick's POV, then Miranda's (via her diary), and finally two final portions (of which the last seems like an epilogue). The format doesn't seem to be all that special, but in truth, it is what makes The Collector so powerful -- your emotions, quite literally, are used against you.

Frederick is a gentle -- yet, due to his fears and compulsions, dangerous -- man. In the beginning, you want to understand his desire to earn Miranda's "love." It's not until things progress that you learn that Miranda isn't truly a person to him (even he doesn't recognize this) but an object to collect. Even more tragic is that as much as you dislike Miranda(I'm ashamed to confess this, but almost the entire portion written from Frederik's POV I didn't care for her) when it's her turn to speak, you are presented an entirely different picture -- of a girl with hopes, dreams, and the realization that the choices that were of such importance in her life -- namely her inability to choose to reveal her love for another man, as well as her faith in God -- are made all the more heartbreaking in light of the predicament in which she finds herself.

Of course, when you delve into the third and fourth parts, it's just devastating. I can't say much as not to spoil, but I know this book will remain with me for an EXTREMELY long time. It's disturbing in a multitude of ways, but it's the ending that drives the final nail in the coffin (no pun intended). Suffice it to say, those last few words gave me chills and even now I can't stop thinking about them.
(less)

13 likes · like · see review

Sep 23, 2007 MacK rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, brit-lit

Other things were supposed to be read first. But I'm finding I'm powerless in the grip of John Fowles.

I don't like scary stories, yet I keep reading.

I don't much like novels wherein almost all the characters are reprehensible, yet I keep reading.

I don't much like admiting that my boss is right about most things, yet I agree with him more and more each book.

What's most remarkable about The Collector is that for half the book I was totally unimpressed. The plot was engaging but the narrative sty...more

17 likes · like · see review

Jul 17, 2007 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

A tough book to rate: it's an easy four-star except for the (very long) section two, in which a daring POV switch from collector to prisoner becomes demoralizing once you flip ahead and realize that section re-narrates the entirety of the book up to that point. This is a rather big mistake (see quote below), yet it begins so well that I was actually willing to read 150+ pages thinking "this is a mistake, this is all a mistake" to get to the last ten pages back with the original narrator. And the...more

7 likes · like · see review

Feb 03, 2013 Krisz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: loved-it

An unforgetting read :)
It's kind of impossible to explain the sensations you experience while reading this novel, because it's that kind of story that feels so wrong, and yet you can't stop reading it, be obsessed about it, love it, hate it, hunt every word with frenzy so you can find out what happens next..
description

I had one of the most complicated relations with Frederick.. a hate-love-hate kind of situation. I know, you will say "What can one possibly like at this character?". He is a psiho, a crazy...more

6 likes · like · see review

Jul 04, 2011 Nenia Campbell rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, x-1960s

tl;dr review: Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?

The song "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads is probably the best way to describe this novel without spoiling anything. It's about a man who's dissociated from the world and himself, who has the ability to lie and hurt without taking blame, who has the capacity for evil but hasn't fulfilled his potential yet. But he is also human, which makes him much more frightening than one of the stereotypical laughing villains. Ferdinand Clegg is très Norman...more tl;dr review: Psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est?

The song "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads is probably the best way to describe this novel without spoiling anything. It's about a man who's dissociated from the world and himself, who has the ability to lie and hurt without taking blame, who has the capacity for evil but hasn't fulfilled his potential yet. But he is also human, which makes him much more frightening than one of the stereotypical laughing villains. Ferdinand Clegg is très Norman Bates with all his hangups about women and sex and family and being proper. The movies are even similar in the sense that Terrence Stamp and Anthony Perkins were both a bit *too* good-looking and clean-cut to portray the roles they were cast in (and yet, this made the movies that much creepier, because why should the psycho ones always look like Anthony Hopkins?).

I didn't like his character from the beginning. He stalks Miranda for a long time before deciding to drug her with chloroform and kidnap her. He has put her on a pedestal--every other woman is a whore or a phoney except for her; he thinks that she'll be able to understand him, even love him, if he forces her into a position where she has no choice but to get to know him. He never for a moment thinks that this could be his undoing; that if Miranda peels back the layers to what lies beneath, she'll discover the part of him that sometimes fantasizes about "making her kneel and cry." Every page with his story on it was so...oily. I could picture his voice in my head, how he would look, and if they had made a remake of it in the late 80s/early 90s, Crispin Glover would have been perfect for the role. But they didn't. Alas.

What really made the story was Miranda's narrative, and the way being captive transformed her. At first she is angry, then despairing. She makes several attempts to escape. She comes across as being one of those upper-middle class girls that tries to be worldly but just comes off as pretentious and naive, which is exactly the kind of woman Ferdinand despises, ironically. She even has an "affair" with a man twice her age, though he breaks it off for reasons that are never quite defined (though we are led to expect it's because he feels guilt and thinks she is too good for him). She constantly insults her captor, making petty jabs at his poor taste in art, his stupidity, his lack of worldliness, his hypocrisy. Nothing she says ever really makes a real dent; they come from completely different words, she speaks, but he only hears the sound of her pretty voice.

In a sense, this complete focus on her beauty is almost as creepy as murder because he doesn't appear to care about her at all as a person. She is an object that he enjoys possessing at any cost; he enjoys thinking about men "going green" with envy at the thought of having a beautiful captive to do whatever they want to with. In the beginning, you're supposed to think that he really might care about her, because of the way he buys her presents and listens to her complaints, but gradually you come to realize that this is not the case. There are three crucial instances that I feel illustrate this transformation: (view spoiler)

This book didn't end the way I wanted it to, or thought it was going to, and that left me feeling bitterly disappointed and also cheated. Not because it was bad, but because there was no moral recompense. Clegg doesn't learn from his mistakes at ALL, he doesn't become a better person, and he learns no lesson from his lack of humanity; in fact, at the end, there is even reason to believe that he enjoyed the power it gave him, and would be willing to do it again. Hence the ambiguous title. Is Clegg a human who collects caterpillars and butterflies? Or is he a caterpillar on the verge of becoming inhuman and collecting humans? Very chilling.(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 27, 2011 Hannah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads, classics, gothics

Oh sheesh, I don't normally *do* disturbing. I prefer comfort books (preferably with twee old English cottages, so.....HEY, will you look at that, this book HAS an old English cottage - kewl...). Maybe that was the appeal. (Then again, probably not, as this is one old cottage I'd never want to go near).

Anyway, this book was seriously disturbing and creepy and kept me reading for 4 straight hours. I would have rated it 4 stars alone for parts 1 and 3, which were told from the perspective of Fred...more

10 likes · like · see review

Nov 11, 2011 Texbritreader rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: english-lit, literary-fiction, modern-classics, novel

I suppose it would be possible to read this powerful and uncompromising novel as a straight thriller, but to do so would be to miss much. Fowles' first published novel is masterfully written, with an uncanny insight into its monstrous protagonist.

The tale of the socially inept, emotionally retarded and morally bankrupt, Frederick Clegg, and his obsession with the young art student, Miranda Grey, is profoundly disturbing. Clegg is an amateur lepidopterist and an unimportant cog in the wheel at h...more I suppose it would be possible to read this powerful and uncompromising novel as a straight thriller, but to do so would be to miss much. Fowles' first published novel is masterfully written, with an uncanny insight into its monstrous protagonist.

The tale of the socially inept, emotionally retarded and morally bankrupt, Frederick Clegg, and his obsession with the young art student, Miranda Grey, is profoundly disturbing. Clegg is an amateur lepidopterist and an unimportant cog in the wheel at his job. A lonely and isolated man, keenly aware of his social class, he is deeply ingrained with the claustrophobic values and overbearing moral judgments of the aunt who has raised him; a man greatly concerned with superficial niceties and correct behavior.

He spends his time mounting his butterflies, attending "bug meetings" and watching the local doctor's daughter. Then things seem to look up for Clegg, after winning big in the football pools, quitting his miserable job and seeing his smothering and domineering aunt and handicapped cousin off to relatives in Australia, Clegg brightens and starts to make a new life. Unfortunately, this means he begins to enact plans he has long fantasized to kidnap and imprison the object of his desire.

The story unfolds in two main sections, the first Frederick's narrative of events and the second Miranda's diary of her captivity; a brief third section provides the tragic denouement. The novel works so well because while relating the events, as experienced by each character, the author manages to mount a fascinating debate about the nature of class structures, the economic rise of the lower classes and the differences in education and perception between those with the ability to create and appreciate the arts and the mindless masses. He also discusses belief in a higher power. Through Miranda, who goes from praying to a neglected God, to believing he is a cold, impersonal deity, to doubting his existence altogether, Fowles examines the challenges and limitations of religious faith when confronted with prolonged exposure to and suffering from human evil.

Miranda, a vibrant young woman on the cusp of a productive life, uses every resources available to her: her beauty, wit, charm, intelligence, compassion, patience, courage and cunning but Clegg's passive brutality and single-mindedness thwart her at every turn. He is a dullard, with few intellectual resources but he has complete power within the microcosm of the little cottage prison he has constructed.

Books like this are a challenge because of the subject matter but the rich subtext and the lack of sensationalized perversity and gratuitous gore make this more accessible and ultimately more terrifying than a novel like American Psycho. Fowles captures the banality of evil perfectly and leaves no doubt as to either it's reality or endurance.

P.S.
I was surprised after I posted my review that so many other readers on the site "hated" the victim and found her so unlikable. While I can see that Miranda was certainly hubristic and ambitious in some of her reflections on her life, she is also fragile and confused in others. Her attachment to an older mentor, in the form of the worldly painter, may appear fawning and snobbish to some but remember Miranda's background, her wealthy professional class parents - with their golf club and martinis, for her the choice to be an artist or appreciate the bohemian G.P. is radical. I think we must remember the basic fact that this is the story of a "college kid", as she would undoubtedly be termed today, and consider the horrendous situation she is in. Ask yourself if this was a news story and not a novel, what would be your basis for judging Miranda?(less)

7 likes · like · see review

Jan 05, 2009 Ryan Lawson rated it 4 of 5 stars

John Fowles' The Collector
Wk.36; Bk.36

I'm not one for genre fiction, and I'm also not one for British literature. My reasons for disliking both should be obvious, they're usually crap! However, Mr. Fowles definitely pulled a number on me. The Collector was a solid page turner. This book really drew me in hook, line, and sinker. I say it's genre fiction because it's a psychological thriller, which I consider to fall into the horror category. If you don't like that assessment then we can agree to...more John Fowles' The Collector
Wk.36; Bk.36

I'm not one for genre fiction, and I'm also not one for British literature. My reasons for disliking both should be obvious, they're usually crap! However, Mr. Fowles definitely pulled a number on me. The Collector was a solid page turner. This book really drew me in hook, line, and sinker. I say it's genre fiction because it's a psychological thriller, which I consider to fall into the horror category. If you don't like that assessment then we can agree to disagree.

Is this what most contemporary or modern British literature is like? If so then I think I could actually stand to read more.

Perhaps, the best thing about The Collector was how it didn't wait to get to the point. Whenever Frederick Clegg started revealing his obsession with Miranda Grey, I began to dread having to read an entire back story as to how and why Frederick had come to be so gruesomely lonesome; but Fowles is such a superb writer that he was able to provide all of that information in the narrative. In a way, Frederick reminded me of Richard Wright's main character from Native Son, Bigger Thomas, whom I just wanted to reach out and say, "Get a hold of yourself! You're making this all bad on your own!"

Frederick is given every opportunity to stop making bad decisions, yet he continues to move downward toward darkness all the while blaming happenstance. The bad things in his life don't seem to occur because of his own actions so much as they accidentally appear. Of course, the reader doesn't see the events in the same way whatsoever. It's like watching a duck drowning in a pond, which is to say if the damn thing can't swim then it should just fly out of the water! Frederick refuses to fly out, though. He has all of the means but simply cannot do so.

Miranda was a problem for me. I loathed reading her narrative. I feel bad for saying that she halfway deserved what happened to her. In the words of Frederick himself, she was so "la-di-da." I was sorry for her at first, but her continued whining and rambling on about G.P. and how much of an "arteeest" she was just made me sick. I felt like I was reading a Hemingway novel! I could not find it within myself to care about what she said. She was an ugly person. Of course, she didn't deserve to suffer like she did but she needed a good shaking (much like Frederick did).

In the end, they were the perfect pair for each others' ugliness. (less)

2 likes · like · see review

Apr 17, 2009 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the most chilling books I’ve ever read, the story of an obsessive loner who kidnaps and keeps captive a young girl in the hope that one day she will love him as he loves her. It’s a bit schlocky in places, particularly the passages where Miranda is reminiscing about her past life, but the characters and claustrophobic tension of the situation are brilliantly realised. Although it lacks the gore and gruesome details of later serial killer books, for my money it’s far more disturbing for it...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jan 15, 2008 Tara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone with a brain!

Shelves: read-this-before-you-die

This book first came to my attention randomly when I worked in a used book store, and it became one of those rare books I'll never let go of. It's the story of a rather dull, self-righteous, tedious British clerk whose only joys in life are collecting butterflies and keeping a close eye on a lovely art student he follows, yet has never met. When he wins the British equivalent of the lottery, he decides that he will add the girl (Miranda) to his collection.

The book is divided into three parts, b...more

13 likes · like · see review

Sep 09, 2007 s.helmke rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: psychological thriller fans

This was Fowle's first novel and is considered the first modern psychological thriller. A butterfly collector, "collects" his prize speciman, a beautiful art student. It's in two parts--the first is from the abductor's perspective; the second part is her journal kept secretly during her captivity. The book is truly chilling, in a Hitchcockian way. I read it as part of a seminar on the price of freedon and was surprised to discover that both parties lose and gain freedom during their time togethe...more

1 like · like · see review

Feb 04, 2009 Patrick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: weirdoes

One of my favorite books. Words cannot describe the endless ugliness I felt after finishing the last page in a dining hall in college. At the time I felt very much like the titular Collector, and it sickened me. I find this to be a very complex book, more than it is probably credited to being. Having (more or less) recently read The Woman in the Dunes, I find them similar in many ways, and if I was wasting away my life now in college I would probably write a report comparing the two.

One thing th...more

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 16, 2009 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

If while reading this book you find yourself thinking something along the lines of, "I have been so lonely lately, and that girl behind the register who smiles at me lives just down the street, maybe I should walk by her house again, and maybe this weekend I will start renovating that cabin in the woods with some tougher locks"... please put the book down. For those of you without the itch to go down in infamy, I would recommend this as a chillingly compassionate look at the mind of a predator.

4 likes · like · see review

Jun 08, 2008 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who has read SIlence of the Lambs

Recommended to Megan by: a professor

An intriguing story, told by a 'collector'. A man who begins the story collecting insects, but quickly upgrades to abducting a young college student. Since he tells his story, he tries to convince the reader of his logic, of the reasons why he does what he does and often the reader can catch him as he decides to convince himself of a new lie. What starts as normal rapidly spirals into the abnormal and the reader is along for the ride.

Other parts of the story are told by the girl that is imprison...more

3 likes · like · see review

Mar 28, 2011 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars

I'm reading this, so I'm currently thinking too. The collector is fascinating not only because the collector is disturbing, but so too is the collected. I'm actually finding this rare species of butterfly almost more disturbing than the collector himself. Why? Because she collects herself, catalogues herself, and kills herself by way of her fantasies still more frighteningly - through the figure of G.P. At least, this is how I have come to it thus far. The collector himself is frightening, but s...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 11, 2009 Kaye rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: horror

This book was a welcome surprise. The kidnapping of a young woman is told from two perspectives; the stalker's, and then the victim's. Oddly (or perhaps naturally enough?) the stalker is the more interesting of the two. The girl is a product of being a fairly privileged art student, not full of any earth-shaking ideas (although she seems to think so), which makes her all the more realistic. She constantly strives to do the morally correct thing, while alternately scorning and protecting her capt...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 18, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: thriller-mystery-suspense

4.5

audio book

I just finished and I'm creeped out and my skin feels tingly. That was deliciously disturbing.

Written in 1st person, we get the kidnapper's/Collector's POV up to a critical point and then we find that Miranda has been keeping a diary and we get her POV of the same events.

Very well done. I felt The Collector's gentle madness since I was trapped in his head. I felt Miranda's resolve and zest to live, to escape, to understand.

The writer did a good job showing the inner workings of e...more

like · see review

Aug 06, 2011 Marc Maitland added it

The subject matter of this book has always fascinated me, since I saw the film based on the book, many years ago. Firmly rooted in time and space, I found the film far more tantalising than the book. Without going into the detail of it, there is one aspect of the book which is completely absent from the film, and this makes the film far more pithy, and therefore better, in my view.

The book is divided into various parts, the major division being between the narrative as seen from the Collector's...more

like · see review

Apr 07, 2013 Sara DeMent rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I'm desensitized. I'm not squeamish (show me blood, show me guts, show me any number of Texas Chainsaw Massacres and Hostels and I'll just get bored) and psychological horror is an old friend to me.

The Collector, however, got to me. It got to me in a way I haven't felt since I was fourteen reading Lord of the Flies for the first time, for the same reason, I think-- it's an exhaustively psychological and excruciatingly detailed account of the horrors human beings can inflict on one another and th...more I'm desensitized. I'm not squeamish (show me blood, show me guts, show me any number of Texas Chainsaw Massacres and Hostels and I'll just get bored) and psychological horror is an old friend to me.

The Collector, however, got to me. It got to me in a way I haven't felt since I was fourteen reading Lord of the Flies for the first time, for the same reason, I think-- it's an exhaustively psychological and excruciatingly detailed account of the horrors human beings can inflict on one another and their methods of justifying what they do.

The structure of the book was to thank, in large part, for the horror of it all. Part one, from Clegg's perspective, is fascinating but also disarming. Because we're looking at it from his point of view, we know he has absolutely no intentions of harming Miranda in any way, and so it's easy to think 'well, it's not so bad for her.'

Part two, on the other hand, written from Miranda's perspective, slowly starts to whittle away at that lazy sense of security. A lot of people seem to dislike this part-- they find Miranda naïve, dull, and self-centered (though I imagine it's not easy to come across as selfless in a normal diary, let alone one kept in a basement dungeon where the only sane company to be found is your own). They seem not to care about her passions and her stories about G.P., but I found her journal both necessary and interesting. We've already had the account of her captivity from Clegg, so aside from her thoughts on some of the more significant events, we don't need to hear it over again from her. Instead, this part is dedicated to making Miranda a person-- Clegg section fails utterly at that; he doesn't see her as a person and doesn't really want to. Part two gives Miranda a life, both before and during her captivity, gives her a family, gives her passions and goals, gives her a man that she loves deeply and confusedly. Whether or not you like the sort of person she is, seeing her as a person is important.

Because once you see her as a person, the third act really comes out and kicks you in the guts.

Miranda's last diary entry is a prayer to the God she's rejected. Maybe the sense of desperation and fear in that one detail was what finally crept under my skin and settled there, maybe it was the relentless descriptions of her symptoms as she worsened and the misery of her final days, but I felt soul-sick after finishing this book. I don't know that I've ever hated a character as much as I hate Clegg and his plodding resistance of anything genuine, his utter lack of self-awareness and conscience. I understand why Miranda couldn't kill him, but I wouldn't have a second's thought about splitting his head open with that hatchet. I only hope poor Marian is up to the task.(less)

like · see review

Mar 11, 2013 Elizabeth Newton rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It was the movie I saw first, which was probably a mistake. Because I fell in love with Ferdinand, because… well because Terrance Stamp is gorgeous in this movie. And I agreed with mum when she said when she was younger and saw the film for the first time, she couldn’t understand why Miranda just wants to get out and away from him. But reading the book was very different. The young, attractive Terrance Stamp is not at all how Ferdinand is described in the book. So once I got over that, I got mor...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 09, 2013 Juniorelvis rated it 4 of 5 stars

A true page turner. With all your heart you will wish for a happy ending.

What is beauty? Is it in the wings of a butterfly, or in its free flight? Is it beautiful in what it is - a pair of wings - or in what it does with those wings? Is it possible to capture what it is if we kill what it does? A precis of this book would seem as clumsy as this metaphor - butterfly collector collects beautiful girl - but it only takes a few pages to feel you are inhabiting the mind and world of the collector. Yo...more A true page turner. With all your heart you will wish for a happy ending.

What is beauty? Is it in the wings of a butterfly, or in its free flight? Is it beautiful in what it is - a pair of wings - or in what it does with those wings? Is it possible to capture what it is if we kill what it does? A precis of this book would seem as clumsy as this metaphor - butterfly collector collects beautiful girl - but it only takes a few pages to feel you are inhabiting the mind and world of the collector. You will not enjoy it.

By dint of birth and circumstance excluded from a 'normal' life, Frederick becomes an outsider looking in, a collector of sights. He could just as soon become part of the 'normal' world of ('normal') people as he could that of butterflies. In order to have what he wants then, his most beautiful and rare specimen, he has to take it out of its world and bring it into his - his capture of the girl is the raid of an Achilles, plucking beautiful Briseis from her family, home and country - from her world. From her world, a beautiful summer meadow, vibrant and full of life, into the dark and lifeless wasteland of his own. She is his spoils and he does spoil her - she can have anything she wants, short of what she really wants.

The pain of imprisonment is made all the more vivid by switching to Miranda's point of view. Suffice to say that the deep pain here, the holocaustal pain, is in what she realizes she has lost from her future - the future that seemed conjoined with the very suns - all one had to do was be, and it would happen. Graduation, love, perhaps marriage, children. The unlived unknown. And yet the inevitable future has been stolen from her, impossibly, like a hand stealing the sun from the sky. A sun which she begs to be able to see. She is frozen in time, she is a photograph waiting to be filed away in a book that will be seen by nobody. No future, no present - all she can do is look back and think of what she had, no, of when she had.

Many of the books best passages are from Miranda:

I listened for traffic, but there was none. I heard an owl. And an aeroplane.
If only people knew what they flew over.
We're all in aeroplanes.

...

...if you can get to the heart of things you find sadness for ever and ever, everywhere, but a beautiful silver sadness, like a Christ face.

...

It's as if the lights have fused. I'm here in the black truth.
God is impotent. He can't love us. He hates us because he can't love us.
All the meanness and the selfishness and the lies.
People won't admit it, they're too busy grabbing to see that the lights have fused. They can't see the darkness and the spider-face beyond and the great web of it all. That there's always this if you scratch at the surface of happiness and goodness.
The black and the black and the black.

There are worlds within the world all around us, if only we could see. We cannot choose the circumstances of our birth but it is certain that the circumstances of our birth - the particular world within the world we are born into - will choose, perhaps from amongst many potentially possible people, one person that will be you. Who has not been completely shaped by the world they have been thrown into? So who can take credit or blame for the shape they have taken?

I miss the fresh faces of all those people I so hated on the Tube and the fresh things that happen every hour of every day if only I could have seen
(less)

1 like · like · see review

Feb 27, 2013 Aaron Schroeder rated it 4 of 5 stars

It does a novel of this level little justice to say that it is thrilling and horrifying, both in terms of its narrative, and especially in terms of how it is capable of subtly influencing its readers allegiances. Once you realize that you are, ahem, siding with a sociopathic kidnapper - hoping that he'll win over the 'girl of his dreams' - it's easy to see that you are in the novel's thrall.

Impressive though this capacity is, it is, I think, simply emblematic of what makes this a great novel and...more It does a novel of this level little justice to say that it is thrilling and horrifying, both in terms of its narrative, and especially in terms of how it is capable of subtly influencing its readers allegiances. Once you realize that you are, ahem, siding with a sociopathic kidnapper - hoping that he'll win over the 'girl of his dreams' - it's easy to see that you are in the novel's thrall.

Impressive though this capacity is, it is, I think, simply emblematic of what makes this a great novel and Fowles a great author. For the novel is, more clearly than the sway it holds over its readers, a study in narrative perspective. The first third takes the form of a (sort of) epistolary written by the kidnapper, Clegg (who calls himself Ferdinand) while the second third is presented as the journal of the victim, Miranda, during her captivity. The reader is treated to pages of the kidnapper's analysis of Miranda's attitudes, as well as of his own, and then pages of Miranda's own reflections on her captivity and on her captor. It becomes clear that each comes to see the other as a character, of sorts - as an instance of some greater generalization. In other words, each sees the other as a character, much in way that readers see the two as characters literally. The novel, therefore (and Miranda's incessant reflection on the nature of the artistic life points us in this direction) presents readers with the sort of meta-narrative - or a reflection on the relationship between artists, audiences, and artworks - that Fowles has come to be known for, and which we he would present a master version of in The Magus.

I highly recommend this novel for anyone acquainted and unacquainted with Fowles other works. The story is frighteningly easy to fall into, much in the way that Oates' Zombie is easy. One wants simply to see what lengths the clearly (to all but himself) insane protagonist will go to achieve his aim - and then, macabre interest piqued, to see whether (and indeed, at times to hope) he will succeed. Better yet, even a shallow reflection on what one's reading reveals great depths to be plumbed. Though, the novel is satisfying on every level, even without the extra academic legwork.

Protip: Spend an hour with a good summary of The Tempest before starting. Understanding the degree to which one's own 'Calibanity' is under scrutiny here will make Miranda's section so much more rewarding - and insulting.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Feb 23, 2013 Philip Blake Borbone rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

This is a difficult review to write. My main complaint is with the second part, mainly because it revolves around Miranda retelling everything that's already been described and droning on about her strange relationship with a man 21 years her senior. But, the part that makes reviewing difficult is that part 2, though not one I particularly liked, was written extremely well.

There is no fantasy with this book. Everything is as realistic as I can imagine having never been in a similar situation wi...more

like · see review

Jan 12, 2013 Danielle rated it 2 of 5 stars

The synopsis of the novel sounds interesting; i expected this book to be haunting and captivating. Wrong on both accounts. The novel is broken into three main parts which switch point of views. It tells the story of an obsessive sociopath, Frederick Clegg, with a fixation on a young, beautiful art student named Miranda. When reading the first section you delve into Clegg's odd mind which proves to be somewhat fascinating. However, I found the second section to be nearly unbearable. The second pa...more

1 like · like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 99 100 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
allegorical readings	3	38	Apr 30, 2013 09:38pm
Aussie Readers: The Collector	16	93	Feb 01, 2013 06:48pm

combine
Other Editions (71)

More editions...

Genres

Classics

134 users

Horror

131 users

Thriller

67 users

Literature

46 users

Novels

39 users

Mystery > Crime

38 users

Contemporary

38 users

European Literature > British Literature

36 users

Mystery

30 users

Literature > 20th Century

23 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About John Fowles

John Robert Fowles was born in Leigh-on-Sea, a small town located about 40 miles from London in the county of Essex, England. He recalls the English suburban culture of the 1930s as oppressively conformist and his family life as intensely conventional. Of his childhood, Fowles says "I have tried to escape ever since."

Fowles attended Bedford School, a large boarding school designed to prepare boys...more

More about John Fowles...

Books by John Fowles

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About The Collector

5 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from The Collector

“I love making, I love doing. I love being to the full, I love everything which is not sitting and watching and copying and dead at heart.” — 74 people liked it

“It's despair at the lack of feeling, of love, of reason in the world. It's despair that anyone can even contemplate the idea of dropping a bomb or ordering that it should be dropped. It's despair that so few of us care. It's despair that there's so much brutality and callousness in the world. It's despair that perfectly normal young men can be made vicious and evil because they've won a lot of money. And then do what you've done to me.” — 48 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: The Collector
avg rating	preview: The Collector Goodreads rating: 3.96 (14361 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243705.The_Collector?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327886592l/243705.jpg[/img][/url] [url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/243705.The_Collector?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Collector by John Fowles[/url]

The Collector

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website