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Oct 13, 2011

Evan rated it:

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...

11 comments like (14 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2012

Bonnie rated it:

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 Mir More...

42 comments like (11 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2009

L.S. rated it:

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...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

J.A. rated it:

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 object More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 23, 2007

MacK rated it:

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 unimpres More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Chris rated it:

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 narrat More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 27, 2011

Hannah rated it:

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 pers More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2011

Texbritreader rated it:

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 th More...

6 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2009

Ryan rated it:

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 the More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 17, 2009

Matthew rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 15, 2008

Tara rated it:

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 th More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2010

Mariel rated it:

The Collector the movie tapped into the parts of myself that can relate to the trying in all the wrong ways outcast. Terrence Stamp is gorgeous. Okay, make that gorgeous in the past tense. (I've since decided to adapt my "Guys who were hot in the '70s aren't hot anymore" theory to include the '60s. Shutup, it is so a theory!) I'm pretty sure that is why Morrissey liked this movie so much. The scene when he's incredibly happy to have the girl of his dreams locked in his base More...

12 comments like (21 people liked it)

Sep 09, 2007

s.helmke rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 04, 2009

Patrick rated it:

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.

More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Apr 16, 2009

Mike rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 08, 2008

Megan rated it:

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 t More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 28, 2011

Liz rated it:

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, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 11, 2009

Kaye rated it:

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 More...

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Marc 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...

0 comments like

Dec 23, 2011

Gladys rated it:

In my Drama class I was assigned a play, The Collector, and a partner to play the creeeepy Clegg. We had to read the whole play and pick a French scene to perform. When we did a sort of pre-performance my partner and I got a lot of criticism. I wasn't believable. I wasn't upset enough. I wasn't a character, I was just me. I was already grimly fascinated by the subject, I read the play three times. I bought the book, partly to help my character development so I could do well in my Drama class, pa More...

0 comments like

Nov 03, 2011

Elyse rated it:

I couldn't get into this book. The beginning didn't immediately captivate me, and proceeded to bore me to the point of yawning. I almost fell asleep while reading this. While the plot - a man captures a young girl and holds her captive in his basement - is interesting, the writing was horrible, in my opinion. It was immensely boring and emotionless. And as for the plot, I've read so many other books about this kind of thing that I suppose that bored me a little as well. I much preferred the Sile More...

0 comments like

Jul 04, 2011

Pikachu rated it:

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. Ferdinan More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 30, 2011

Maggie rated it:

When I first read this-I just thought it was good. But I find myself thinking about these characters (and thus this book) quite a lot, almost as though they were people I met once, wondering whether they did this or that, or if they ever learned better, or if Miranda's ex ever realized what he lost. I've come to realize that the way this novel has crept up on me is a sign of great writing, and that this book affected me a lot more than I realized!
Loner, social outcast, and butterfly coll More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

May 04, 2011

Katie rated it:

A really interesting book and very much worth reading. Only gets three stars from me however as the middle section/last half told by Miranda is not what it could have been.

I picked this up when I replaced the copy of Brave New World that I had borrowed, I knew nothing about the book or the movie and I didn't even read the blurb on the back... I just picked it up to read a few pages before I nodded off to sleep. I was totally sucked in (and didn't get much sleep).

The first and More...

1 comment like

Jan 22, 2011

Liam rated it:

Skimming through the reviews here, I see that the two POVs employed by Fowles polarize readers. Dramatically so. To the point where they find one narrative completely engaging, the other a detractor. But it's not one sided - both Caliban and Miranda have their fair share of supporters. And yes, I'm team Miranda (hence me referring to the Collector as 'Caliban'), but I am not opposed to this novel's beautiful structure.

The two perspectives presented here are the essence of the novel. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 03, 2011

Inuitdebonair rated it:

The section narrated by the prisoner is just not as nice as the bit by the collector! The user 'Chris' sums it up perfectly:
'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 More...

0 comments like

Dec 29, 2010

Davis rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 19, 2010

Sharyl rated it:

My latest read is The Collector, by the late John Fowles, which was his first successful book, back in 1963. It is a dark tale about a young male sociopath who makes a shift from collecting butterflies to collecting a young woman he's been admiring and stalking obsessively.

Frederick Clegg was living a miserable life as a strange loner of a clerk until he won a lottery. After that, he led an even stranger existence, for what he decided to do with all this money was to buy a very seclu More...

0 comments like

Jan 18, 2010

Donald rated it:

This story is written in four sections, and in the beginning I felt I was reading second rate literature. In the first section, you get a mundane view of Frederick Clegg’s life before and after he wins a betting pool (think football cards on a grand scale). He is just a clerk who collects butterflies and comes into money.

He is also infatuated with a certain girl who he feels inferior to and cannot bring himself to approach. He is a sad man, leading a dull life. Fowles manages to brin More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2008

Melissa rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

1 comment like (2 people liked it)