John Fowles

Withdrawn, uneducated and unloved, Frederick collects butterflies and takes photographs. A chance pools win enables him to capture the art student Miranda and keep her in the cellar of the Sussex house he has bought with the windfall. The situation is seen first from the collectors point of view: he thinks the chloroform pad no more vicious than his butterfly net, and patiently waits for the barriers of class and taste that inhibit their love to break down in the limbo of their isolation. She, the creator, desperate for her freedom, tries to be understanding but cannot banish her comtempt for everything anti-life that the collector stands for.

The Collector

nadine 

“The power of women! I've never felt so full of mysterious power. Men are a joke. We're so weak physically, so helpless with things. Still, even today. But we're stronger than they are. We can stand their cruelty. They can't stand ours.”

“Some people would say -- you're only a drop, your word-breaking is only a drop, it wouldn't matter. But all the evil in the world's made up of little drops. It's silly talking about the unimportance of the little drops. The little drops and the ocean are the same thing.”

“I don't want to die. I feel full of endurance. I shall 

“It's no good trusting vaguely in your luck, in Providence or God's being kind to you. You have to act and fight for yourself. The sky is absolutely empty. Beautifully pure and empty.”

“Moon-music, so silvery, so far, so noble. The two of us in that room. No past, no future. All intense deep that-time-only. A feeling that everything must end, the music, ourselves, the moon, everything. That if you get to the heart of things you find sadness for ever and ever, everywhere; but a beautiful silver sadness, like a Christ face. Accepting the sadness. Knowing that to pretend it was all gay was treachery. Treachery to everyone sad at that moment, everyone ever sad, treachery to such music, such truth.”

“I don't want to be clever or great or "significant" or given all that clumsy masculine analysis. I want to paint sunlight on children's faces, or flowers in a hedge or a street after April rain. The essences. Not the things themselves. Swimmings of light on the smallest things. Or am I being sentimental?”

“People today always want to get things, they no sooner think of it they want to get it in their hands, but I am different, old-fashioned, I enjoy thinking about the future and letting things develop all in good time.”

“We all want things we can't have. Being a decent human being is accepting that.”  

“What I fear in you is something you don't know is in you.”

Amanda Autumn Berrey

No one would believe this situation. He keeps me absolutely prisoner. But in everything else I am mistress.

“You know what you do? You know how rain takes the colour out of everything? That’s what you do to the English language. You blur it every time you open your mouth.”

We are sure that there is some quite harmless explanation for her disappearance. Artistic young people have their whims.”

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 is understand her captor, and so gain her freedom.

sharkie

Oleksandr

Ciel Zero

[ BOOK IG: @clumsyciel ]

overall rating: 4/5 ⭐️
time taken to read: ~2 days
number of notes: 121

"She was always criticising my way of speaking. One day, I remember she said, 'You know what you do? You know how rain takes the colour out of everything? That's what you do to the English language. You blur it every time you open your mouth.' " (page 69)

TC is written mostly in the perspective of Frederick (Freddie) Clegg. after being raised by his aunt, he is an awkward and antisocial entomologist in his mid-twenties. by a stroke of luck, he wins 70k pounds and uses it to buy a small countryside home in the outskirts of London. he sets the basement up for a captive.
his goal? to obtain Miranda Grey, a college student he has grown obsessed with.

TC was truly breathtaking for me. in many thriller/crime fiction books, they are often written in the victims' perspective; uncommonly in the perspective of the abuser.
TC shows Clegg's true character clearly; a sick and twisted man who thinks that Miranda would fall to stalkholm syndrome. he also seems to somewhat have both a victim and a saviour complex, as he feels horrible when Miranda is rude to him, but takes pride in the times where he 'helps' Miranda during her kidnapping. what is interesting about Clegg is that he tries to 'respect' Miranda's boundaries by not trying to touch her. he provides for her, but he wants to be the only one to see her; to have her.

Miranda is no fool. she sees through Clegg's plan almost immediately and uses it to her advantage. she is incredibly smart; and uses Clegg's naivety to slowly manipulate him into doing her bidding. it starts with small things, such as getting him to buy miscellaneous items for her and she earns Clegg's trust.

in a way, Clegg views Miranda like how he views the butterflies he has preserved in his work as an entomologist. he wants to keep Miranda dependent and in a sense, pinned onto him. 

what caught my eye for this book was the book cover for it. it reminded me of The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison. then i realised after reading TC, that the stories were incredibly similar; an older man with a saviour complex and keeping younger girl(s) hostage.

i found Miranda's character a bit conflicting, per se. she views herself in a good light (nothing wrong with some self-confidence!) but keeps herself hung up over a much-older mentor of hers. she always tries to act older than her age in order to 'fit in', or so that the mentor would perhaps make a move on her. 

finally, the writing style. there were some parts of dialogue without the inverted commas which i found kind of odd, but perhaps it was because this book was written in 1963. however, i did learn many new words and phrases (hence the incredible number of notes above). 

overall, i do think TC was an amazing book. sick, twisted and the ending was downright chilling to the bone.

couldnt put this book DOWN. i love how the story was written. unreliable narrator x distressed woman captive. love it . LOVESSS IT. 

Jiji Meralpis

esperanza 

It was not an interesting story. Neither of the two characters were likable .The book was in the psychological mystery genre, but it had many extra and boring parts.

Shidehdeishidi

Jackson Simionato

achei um livro de personagem, o plano de fundo do sequestro foi pouco importante pra mim. O que me cativou foi a perspectiva em primeira pessoa de pessoas doentes que pareceu bem real, nisso me lembrou Dom Casmurro e Psicopata Americano. Por incrível que pareça achei muito interessante as partes do GP, me fez pensar muita coisa sobre elitismo e relacionamentos abusivos. O fluxo de leitura foi um obstáculo bem grande e por motivos muito bobos, detalhes que só atrapalhavam o leitor e não adicionavam nada á história. Enredo bem previsível.

A disturbing yet gripping read; one of those novels you want to hurl out of frustration yet continue to read out of curiosity. It provides an insight into the mind of a psychopath, and despite feeling contempt for him, John Fowles has an incredible way of also making you sympathise.

Rowan Myers

I live and breathe horror. I love Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, and Clive Barker. I like the psychological stuff. I like the blood. I like horror movies. I thought I was immune.

This made me sleep with the light on for two days.

Emilia 

Sommige boeken hadden niet geschreven moeten worden, dit is een goed voorbeeld.

Ashlyn

For a debut novel, this is pretty quality. Fowles does a great job of writing from the perspective of a creepy stalker, but an even better job of writing from the view of a desperate, enraged, proud young woman. The horror of this book is how mundane and utterly possible it seems. I hope I never meet my Caliban.

Sian Wadey

I wasn't sure what to expect from this novel. Initially, I was drawn in and eager to find out what happened to the two characters and as the POV switched it completely transformed my opinion of the characters. A really interesting read and I particularly liked the ending!

Angela Miramontes

This book is haunting. In a way, the tone is so innocent that it just contributes to the creepy and uncomfortable feeling of it all.

"A superb novel...Evil has seldom been so sinister." --Time 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. "A bravura first novel...As a horror story, this book is a remarkable tour de force." --New Yorker

I understand that it’s fiction and that I should be rating the writing but wtf all I can think is how gross this book is which is probably the point and I guess I’ll share that some of Miranda’s ideas I get and I like but gross eww I can’t stand that man and even something about a man being the author makes sense because why would anyone else write it

jillian tenner

Two Stars

A brief synopsis: Ferdinand is a peculiar man who is obsessed with a woman he has never met before. He follows her and watches her from afar and falls in love with everything about her. One day, he just cant take the loneliness anymore and abducts her. This novel follows what happened after the abduction and is told from both Ferdinand's and Miranda's point of view

My review: I didnt like the writing style. The plot was good. The events that happened themselves were interesting but the way it was worded and written made it come accross as boring. Also the characters were not likable at all. I think the author wanted to make the reader sympathize with Ferdinand, but to me he seemed entitled and whiny. Miranda wasn't a good character either but I think that was done on purpose. I do not recommend this novel

Melody Izard

There is a very creepy story which serves as the cloak for Fowles real message. I will say nothing more. Read it only for the creepy story if you want to.

When Frederick Clegg, clerk and butterfly collector, wins a football pool fortune he buys a country home in which to house a new specimen

I just did not enjoy it at all. The writing was okay, not great, until I got to the diary portion. OH MY GOD. I thought it would be great to read the story both from the captor's perspective and the victim's perspective, but Miranda's diary was SO rambling about art and the people she knew and I was just screaming at the book "OH MY GOD, WHO TF CARES?!" I was so relieved to finish that (rather large) portion of the book.

Ultimately, not a lot happens. I liked the parallels drawn between him collecting butterflies and him "collecting" Miranda, but there wasn't a lot of substance beyond that. I liked the ending as much as I could have, but it didn't save this book at all imo. An incredibly tedious read.

Jade Flynn

I read Fowles' The Magus last year and thoroughly enjoyed it so I was hoping The Collector would hold up to the same standards. It was good. It was nothing ground breaking but it kept me reading and it made me want to pick up The French Lieutenant's Woman.

The Collector

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