“The Collector” By John Fowles 2 1 When she was home from her boarding-school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Hall Annexe. She and her younger sister used to go in and out a lot, often with young men, which of course I didn’t replace.me Size: KB. The Collector is a thriller novel by English author John Fowles, in his literary replace.me plot follows a lonely, psychotic young man who kidnaps a female art student in London and holds her captive in the cellar of his rural farmhouse. Divided in two sections, the novel contains both the perspective of the captor, Frederick, as well as that of Miranda, the replace.me: John Fowles. Free download or read online The Collector pdf (ePUB) book. The first edition of the novel was published in , and was written by John Fowles. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Paperback format.4/5. Dec 23,  · Book Collector on bit and bit PCs. This download is licensed as shareware for the Windows operating system from cataloging software and can be used as a free trial until the trial period ends (after an unspecified number of days). The replace.me Book Collector demo is available to all software users as a free download /5(61).

Hell, it shocked me a lot, and I’ve seen many seasons of Criminal Minds : year-olds, yes, maybe. Then again, it always depends on the kid. See all 5 questions about The Collector…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Collector. Apr 06, Brenna rated it really liked it. Rather than go into the plot details I’d rather touch on the larger metaphors of the book in this review.

Although the basic plot is chilling enough on its own A man kidnaps a beautiful and intelligent young girl the parts that truly disturbed me had to do more with what I believe Fowles was saying about modern culture and the rise of the middle class. Though this book is decidedly “British” in many ways, I think the issues he raises are applicable to any society where a large middle class is Rather than go into the plot details I’d rather touch on the larger metaphors of the book in this review.

Though this book is decidedly “British” in many ways, I think the issues he raises are applicable to any society where a large middle class is created in a relatively short amount of time. For me, this book is asking whether financial stability really leads to morality and more fulfilling lives as in Major Barbara or if perhaps we actually lose our souls once our bellies are fed. As some have mentioned in other reviews, Miranda is the stereotypical posh young artist.

Born rich, it’s easy for her to dismiss the complaints of the lower classes while at the same time hurling scorn at the society that produced her. I’ve met many people like Miranda especially during my Masters at Columbia School of the Arts where trust fund babies were the norm, I went to school with a Pulitzer heiress for goodness sake and usually found them boring and shallow, quick to namedrop an artist or recite tired rhetoric. But as her story progressed I began to like her more and more; Miranda is extremely self-aware, and I sensed that given time, she would grow out of her naivety and become a truly amazing woman.

She is only 20 after all, barely an adult, and for all her idealistic pretension she is trying to evolve and grow something that’s can’t be said for many of my Columbia peers.

That’s where the butterfly metaphor becomes even more apt; it’s not just that she’s a butterfly that Frederick has collected, it’s what a butterfly represents: metamorphoses. It’s almost as if Frederick has trapped her right when she was about to break out of her cocoon, halting her true beauty right before she was about to spread her wings. Which brings me to Frederick as a stand-in for middle-class mediocrity. Reading this book, I was often reminded of the idea that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Frederick is indifferent to everything: art, war, sex, etc. The only thing he seems to respond to is a fleeting type of beauty, and all he wants to do with that beauty is possess it. Not love it, not understand it, just possess it. Similarly, the rise of the middle class in America and the UK should have been a renaissance of ideas once our bellies were fed.

In many ways it was the civil rights and feminist movements come to mind , but in others, like the rise of reality television, celebrity culture and punditry news, our success has just made us comfortable and indifferent to human suffering. We go on collecting pop music, techno gadgets, houses, cars, spouses, designer clothes, with no question or investigation as to why. With the internet we have the opportunity to learn about anything and everything, for the first time in history the entire history of the world is available at our fingertips.

Why then does misinformation and stupidity seem to be on the rise rather then the reverse? Why then are we becoming less literate rather than more?

I agree with Miranda when she says art collectors are the worst offenders. The idea that art is merely an investment just like the idea that a house is merely an investment rather than a home you share your life in is abhorrent to me. I could never stand to look at an ugly painting in my home just because it was worth money, nor could I ever live with myself if I hoarded Picassos or Bacons or Kirchners purely for my own benefit.

Because the true lover of beauty and not all beauty is beautiful as Bacon proves wants to share that beauty with the world. They want everyone to see, hear, taste, feel, and enjoy that beauty so that others lives may be enriched as well.

They want everyone to feel as passionately as they do about what they love, but more importantly they just want others to feel. View all 28 comments. 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 I read this when I was very young. This is a trophy wife by force, not a sex slave but a ‘wife’.

It’s a very original story, writing at it’s finest. And it’s creepy, very very creepy. There are a lot of excellent reviews on GR about this book, but in my opinion they all give far too much away.

The book is like an onion. The outside skin, then the world within, layer upon layer. And at it’s resolution, quite unexpectedly there is a tiny green shoot. Every detail you know about the story or the characters will take away a layer for you. View all 37 comments.

Fredrick is a clerk and butterfly collector who wins some money that lets him retire. Fredrick is lonely and has trouble getting along with others, the only people he really has are his aunt and cousin. He watches an art student named Miranda who starts to become his obsession. When he suddenly has a lot of free time and money on his hands, his daydreams about Miranda turn dark and he plans to kidnap her and hold her hostage in the cellar of an old cottage he buys until she gets to know him and Fredrick is a clerk and butterfly collector who wins some money that lets him retire.

When he suddenly has a lot of free time and money on his hands, his daydreams about Miranda turn dark and he plans to kidnap her and hold her hostage in the cellar of an old cottage he buys until she gets to know him and falls in love with him.

I really enjoyed the book personally, I liked the writing style and even though its about something macabre Fowles doesn’t make it exploitative or gore-y to shock the reader. A lot of the focus is on the characters change and development as well as their thought process through out. I think it’s really well done, both the Fredrick and Miranda parts are distinct and feel like two separate people.

Everything unfolding the way it does felt so real too, the way Fredrick distances himself from what he’s doing and tries to justify it, insisting he doesn’t mean to do it until he does it even though everything is being meticulously planned.

Also Miranda’s conflicted feelings over Fredrick and her slow breakdown from living confined and alone. I originally read this book because I was listening to last podcast on the left which I recommend to anyone who likes cults or serial killers but isn’t sensitive to jokes that may be considered offensive and they mention Leonard Lake being obsessed with the book. I checked and there are multiple murders associated with the book and so I just wanted to see what about this book was causing all these people to feel like yes killing is great.

Anyways the only thing I can come up with is that since the book was published in the s there wasn’t as much about sadistic killers or people doing crimes like these out there so it appealed to them and Fowles does such a good job capturing a certain kind of personality in Fredrick that people really identified with it. It also gave them a good model of how to escalate to the point of doing things like kidnapping and murdering because really in the book Fredrick just starts off by dreaming about it and it goes from there.

That’s all I’ve got because view spoiler [ Fredrick never really hurts Miranda or forces her to do anything especially at first, he kind of just likes having her hide spoiler ] so I’m not sure why that would inspire Leonard Lake to want a slave that he can use for sex and to take care of the house?

The author in interviews said that the book is about social class and money and I do see that much more clearly in the book than any message about how its a good idea to kidnap women. I’m not sure how much I agree with the social commentary though probably because it has been decades since the book has been written.

I do understand the point that money and idle time given to people can lead to them doing things they might not have otherwise but I don’t think the class or money is the problem so much as the person themselves. View all 16 comments. Nov 30, Paul Bryant rated it really liked it. This is one of those boy meets girl, chloroforms her, throws her in the back of the van and stuffs her in his basement type stories.

Fred is the sweetest psycho ever! The kindest and most attentive! No slurping and grunting at all! This is a brilliant stroke by John Fowles and really messes with your mind. As does the whole book. After that things just go badly. View all 11 comments. Aug 09, Dana Ilie rated it it was amazing Shelves: classic-literature.

I definitely think Book Readers should have this book on their shelf. View all 17 comments. 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 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 Impotent sociopath kidnaps beautiful art student. But I’ll be goddamned if I’d expect anyone to enjoy reading the daily chronicles of what a helpless twit I’d been.

The ending really made me smile, though. The creepy ending made it all worthwhile. Crazy fucker. View all 29 comments. Jan 25, Fabian rated it really liked it. This novel is over fifty years old! Though its semi predictable, the end is nonetheless terribly terrific. That there are two strands of narrative is sometimes a revelation, sometimes an encumbrance like living through a terrible ordeal not once but twice! Both psych This novel is over fifty years old! View 2 comments.

It’s been hard for me to focus lately — gee, I wonder why? Over the past month, I’ve begun several books, lost interest, shelved them. Instead, I find myself studying grim news items and statistics, scrolling through memes on social media, staring blankly out my window onto empty streets and watching old black and white movies or TV shows I’ve missed over the past decade. All while trying to work from home while I still have a job. Then I came across this book. I knew vaguely what it was about, having long ago seen the acclaimed movie adaptation starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar.

About 50 pages in, I realized it was the perfect book to read in semi quarantine. Ferdinand, a. Frederick, Clegg is a nondescript something clerk in London who collects butterflies and has one other obsession: Miranda, a young, attractive art student he’s seen and stalked.

When he wins the pools the UK equivalent of the lottery , he decides to abduct Miranda and keep her in the house he’s bought in the country, complete with highly secure cellar, which he’s outfitted for the newest item in his collection. That’s essentially the story. Miranda tries to escape, of course, and Ferdinand tries to stop her. She requests items from town, including some things that could perhaps hint that she’s that missing girl from the art college.

Above all, she tries to find out what Ferdinand wants from her. What’s so fascinating about John Fowles’s first novel is that it has the outline of a thriller but it’s really so much more. While the first part of the book is told from Ferdinand’s POV — Fowles is very good at getting inside the twisted mind of what we might call an “incel” today — the second switches to Miranda’s POV, and it’s here that the book gets really interesting. Miranda keeps a secret diary, and through her accounts of her time in the cellar we see different takes on scenes we’ve already witnessed.

Plus, she’s got obsessions of her own, including a much older semi-famous artist. While it’s easy to have sympathy for her in the first part — she’s clearly a victim — things get more complicated when we read her thoughts about class, education, physical beauty and art in the second. What makes this such an effective quarantine novel is how isolated and trapped Miranda feels, removed from her friends, her family, her home.

She longs to breathe fresh air, look up into the sky. She misses even the simplest, most banal activities. Through her diary, you can also see how her entrapment has changed her feelings about life, art and freedom. There are lots of literary references — to The Tempest , of course, with Miranda referring to Clegg as her Caliban — and Emma , but also to more contemporary books about other anti-social characters like The Catcher in the Rye and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

The discussions about art are thoughtful and engaging. This novel must have made a huge splash when it appeared in the s, decades before such fiction became a subgenre. Based on this, I’m definitely going to seek out — and perhaps, um, collect — some of his other novels.

View all 33 comments. So much for starting the year with a literary bang. This novel made me feel like a dud firework. I didn’t find it chilling or claustrophobic. Not once was I creeped out. It did however leave me feeling rather sad, after the glum ending. What I could really do without right now.

As soon as the narrative went from the perspective of the possessive kidnapper to the diary entries of the young woman held captive, I was starting to lose interest. Alright, to start off with anyway, I liked reading of h So much for starting the year with a literary bang. Alright, to start off with anyway, I liked reading of her attempts to outwit him and get away, but it just wore off eventually. It may be a case of a decent book that I just happened to read at the wrong time, I don’t know.

I could think of only a few scenes between Sarah Woodruff and Charles Smithson in The French Lieutenant’s Woman that did more for me than the whole of this novel did. I was going for three stars, but considering I really struggled to finish it, it’s more likely somewhere around two I’m afraid.

As a first novel the writing was pretty good, and that is about all the positives I can give it. I felt nothing for Frederick. Didn’t feel pity for him. Of course I felt sorrow for Miranda. Poor girl. So, not a great reading experience at all for me. I can’t say that I’m that interested in butterflies, but I would rather this had actually been about some nice lovely butterflies, and not feeling locked up.

I’ve had enough of that already! View all 20 comments. Thought by some to be the first psychological thriller, this book left me slightly wanting. The Collector is broken into three parts. The first part is from Clegg’s point of view. Clegg is a man obsessed with a young woman and decides to “collect” her, much as he collects butterflies.

The second part is from the woman’s point of view, once she’s been “collected”. This was the part that I found unsatisfying. There were some observations in this section about class, money and society wh 3. There were some observations in this section about class, money and society which probably were more pertinent in the 60’s, which is when this book was written , than they are now.

I found this portion slowed down the pacing considerably. The third part goes back to Clegg’s point of view. Clegg is where this book lives. The peeks inside his mind, while presented as normal thoughts on his part, are truly chilling to us readers who are sane.

I shivered to read some of the things he was thinking. These psychological tics and the detached way in which they were presented were what made this book great. You can see how I’m torn here between being unsatisfied, while at the same time finding some portions of The Collector to be outstanding.

To today’s jaded horror readers? This might not be the book for you. But to fans of stories like Silence of the Lambs, or even Red Dragon, I think this book will appeal, even though some of the themes are a bit outdated. It’s to them that I recommend The Collector. Shelves: unreliable-narrators , recs-mom , full-of-wonderful , owned-ebook , eek-the-creepies , He wants me living-but-dead. 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 Frederick’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. She writes about G.

To Miranda, G. 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. Always sneering at him, jabbing him, hating him and showing it. But linked destiny. Like being shipwrecked on an island—a raft—together. In every way not wanting to be together. But together. 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. View all 48 comments. Jun 25, Lisa rated it it was amazing Shelves: books-to-read-before-you-die. And I answered: “It is not about that at all, and it is one of the most suspenseful and scary novels I ever read!

One just rarely thinks of the fact that you kill them and pierce them with a needle to be able to look at “Oh”, said a friend, taking this novel off my shelf. One just rarely thinks of the fact that you kill them and pierce them with a needle to be able to look at their beautiful wings at your leisure instead of chasing after them flying free.

So the cover and title say it all, just not straightforward. I guess this book made me a strong supporter of butterflies’ right to fly View all 9 comments. May 30, Michael rated it it was amazing Shelves: unreliable-narrator. One of the first dark psychological thrillers–at least in modern times though depending on how you categorize them, James or Poe or even some of the ancient Greeks might usefully be described this way, too.

A tale of obsession and art and butterflies–need I say more? Wonderful for those who take their fiction black. What’s especially interesting here is the sheer banality of Frederick’s evil. He kidnaps Miranda, then doesn’t really know what to do or how to relate to her as an actual person One of the first dark psychological thrillers–at least in modern times though depending on how you categorize them, James or Poe or even some of the ancient Greeks might usefully be described this way, too.

He kidnaps Miranda, then doesn’t really know what to do or how to relate to her as an actual person instead of as an object. View all 7 comments. Dec 19, Peter rated it really liked it. That was quite an interesting piece of fiction. A collector of butterflies is obsessed with a girl and finally kidnaps her when he comes to a fortune. She desperately tries to escape her remote prison and the relationsship between those completely different characters is shown in an impressive way.

There is a kind of narration by the male character and one of the female character, the victim, in form of a diary. I won’t spoil the ending but this read was quite captivating. They characters in his That was quite an interesting piece of fiction. They characters in his novel come from different walks of life and the sub-plot is exactly about society and Caliban like characters.

Many allusions to art and literature delight the well read reader. I’ve never read any novel like this before. Clearly recommended! View all 4 comments. Jul 04, J.

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. 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. 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.

Feb 22, F rated it it was amazing Shelves: , uk. Loved – so creepy! View all 3 comments. 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 A great pal of mine, who shall remain nameless, is a collector. 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 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. 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. 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.. View all 6 comments. Oh boy what did I just read?! This was most definitely a strange sinister and creepy story. Beyond the obvious depraved strangeness of the whole scenario he had no backbone! Nothing going for him.

Strange strange. Miranda reminisces over her previous life throughout this section of the novel; and many of her diary entries are written either to her sister or to a man named G. Miranda reveals that G. At first, Miranda thinks that Clegg has sexual motives for abducting her; but, as his true character begins to be revealed, she realises that this is not true. She begins to pity her captor, comparing him to Caliban in Shakespeare ‘s play The Tempest because of his hopeless obsession with her.

Clegg tells Miranda that his first name is Ferdinand eventual winner of Miranda’s affections in The Tempest. Miranda tries to escape several times, but Clegg stops her.

She also tries to seduce him to convince him to let her go. The only result is that he becomes confused and angry. As Clegg repeatedly refuses to release her, she begins to fantasize about killing him.

After a failed attempt to do so, Miranda enters a period of self-loathing. She decides that to kill Clegg would lower her to his level. She refrains from any further attempts to do so. Before she can try to escape again, she becomes seriously ill and dies. The third part of the novel is narrated by Clegg. At first, he wants to commit suicide after he finds Miranda dead; but, after he reads in her diary that she never loved him, he decides that he is not responsible for what happened to her and is better off without her.

He buries her corpse in the garden. The book ends with his announcement that he plans to kidnap another girl. Literary scholars have noted the theme of class in the British caste system as a prominent point of interest in the novel. Some scholars have compared the power struggle between Frederick and Miranda as exemplifying the Hegelian ” master—slave dialectic “, and that both exert power over one another—both physically and psychologically—despite their differences in social background.

In the Journal of Modern Literature , scholar Shyamal Bagchee attests that the novel possesses an “ironic- absurdist view” and contains a significant number of events which are hinged purely on chance. Bagchee notes the novel’s greatest irony being that Miranda seals her own fate by continually being herself, and that through “each successive escape attempt she alienates and embitters Clegg the more.

Fowles takes great care to show that Clegg is like no other person we know. It takes Miranda a long time get rid of her successive stereotyped views of Clegg as a rapist, an extortionist, or a psychotic. She admits to an uneasy admiration of him, and this baffles her. Clegg defies stereotypical description. Furthermore, Bagchee notes Miranda’s evolution as a character only while in captivity as another paradox in the novel: “Her growing up is finally futile; she learns the true meaning of existentialist choice when, in fact, she has very limited actual choice.

And she learns to understand herself and her life when, in effect, that life has come to a standstill. Bagchee notes that the divided narrative structure of the novel—which first presents the perspective of Frederick, followed by that of Miranda the latter divulged in epistolary form via scattered diary entries —has the characters mirroring each other in a manner that is “richly ironic and reveals of a sombre and frightening view of life’s hazards.

John Fowles is well established as a master of language, using a variety of tools to convey different meanings and bring his characters closer to his reader.

He has written a novel which depends for its effect on total acceptance by the reader. There is no room in it for the least hesitation, the smallest false note, for not only is it written in the first person singular, but its protagonist is a very special case indeed. Fowles’s main skill is in his use of language. There is not a false note in his delineation of Fred. In , Mary Andrews of The Guardian wrote that “Fowles invites us to defy his main character’s excuses and read between the lines, and the facts paint a more chilling picture.

Fred doesn’t accidentally abduct Miranda, there’s a sense that he’s been leading up to this event his whole life,” and deemed Frederick Clegg “one of literature’s most evil characters. The Collector has been adapted as a film and several times as a play. It’s also referred to in various songs, television episodes and books.

The novel was adapted as a feature film by the same name in It starred Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. The novel was also loosely adapted into a Filipino film as a Bilanggo sa Dilim Prisoner in the Dark in In several cases since the novel was published, serial killers, spree killers, kidnappers , and other criminals have claimed that The Collector was the basis, the inspiration, or the justification for their crimes.

Lake is said to have been obsessed with The Collector. Lake described his plan for using the women for sex and housekeeping in a “philosophy” videotape.

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. 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. 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.

Feb 22, F rated it it was amazing Shelves: , uk. Loved – so creepy! View all 3 comments. 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 A great pal of mine, who shall remain nameless, is a collector. 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 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. 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. 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..

View all 6 comments. Oh boy what did I just read?! This was most definitely a strange sinister and creepy story. Beyond the obvious depraved strangeness of the whole scenario he had no backbone! Nothing going for him. Strange strange. Obsession, power and a beautiful captured butterfly in the form of Miranda and you get a wicked little story with plenty of arty metaphors to chew on.

I almost loved this book but not every second of it. The story flagged for me once the perspective shifted to Miranda. When a book is being lauded as some kind of bible for a number of murderers and serial killers, then of course it will attract my attention. The Collector follows a butterfly collector who diverts his obsession with collecting onto a beautiful stranger, an art student named Miranda.

I was so sure The Collector would become a new favourite, the premise is deliciously dark and disturbing, a man obsessed with a woman, intent on kidnapping her and making her fall in love with him. I felt like I just wanted it to go further The first half is fantastic, as we are inside the mind of the collector, Frederick. But the ending is pretty strong, so you do finish on a high note! All in all, really glad I read it. Incredibly well-written and crazy addictive for the most part.

This was a little weird and slightly uncomfortable but throughly entertaining and memorable. Oct 03, J. I thought this was just a brilliant novel by John Fowles. Very unsettling, and very chilling, with enough plot twists to keep you guessing.

Highly recommended. Jul 24, Richard Derus rated it really liked it. Real Rating: 3. It was a dark and stormy day in Austin, Texas, in This book deeply unsettled me, left me trying to comprehend what the heck I was experiencing. What a great way to get a something passionate reader to buy all your books! Now, reading them This was the oldest book of hi Real Rating: 3.

This was the oldest book of his I could find after reading A Maggot , which also blew me away. But these words, this exceedingly dark book, this awful nightmare of an experience from Miranda’s PoV anyway was just so very very unsettling I couldn’t go deeper into this strange and disturbing psyche.

I might not sleep, and that’s a lot more serious a problem than it was in my 20s. Have fun, y’all. Feminists: Avoid. It’s hard to believe that after so many novels and films about sociopathic kidnappers, I would still be shocked by a book written in the early 60s. The Collector is a traumatizing novel about a guy who kidnaps a young woman, although Clegg is not your typical kidnapper and Miranda is by no means your typical kidnapee.

What really makes it exceptional is the uniqueness of the two characters and how this shows through the alternating narratives. It soon becomes clear that neither of them is totall It’s hard to believe that after so many novels and films about sociopathic kidnappers, I would still be shocked by a book written in the early 60s.

It soon becomes clear that neither of them is totally reliable and what truly matters is what each decides not to tell as well as how they do or don’t tell it. Once more, Fowles builds his characters in perfection. The way they both struggle to gain power over each other is thrilling and the reader is in a constant effort to understand the motives behind their deeds.

There is also a powerful symbolism here, as Frederick and Miranda represent two opposite forces that were both blooming in England at the time. Old vs new, modern vs archaic, art vs lack of it, imprisonment vs freedom, and ultimately, as Miranda puts it, The New People vs The Few. Miranda is the power of life and art is the ever-blooming means through which it is expressed.

Nothing is served in a plate in The Collector , which makes it truly rewarding in the end. Although, by then, you will probably be too numb to actually feel anything except a growing sort of uneasiness. It’s heartbreaking in the least cheesy way imaginable.

The idea, the execution, Fowles’ extraordinary portrayal of the characters’ psychologies, its darkness and all those feelings it gave me are worth nothing less than all the stars I can give. Jun 24, CC rated it it was amazing Shelves: classics , darkish-to-depths-of-hell , bbs-challenge , damaged , thriller-suspense-mystery.

Frederick Clegg is a simple man who led a lonely life. Working as a town clerk, Frederick tries to make friends, but his oddities prevent any real connections. Her life seems to be bright and full of potential until she encounters Frederick. Waking bound and gagged in a cellar, her life drastically changes. To her credit, Miranda is determined to take steps necessary to survive.

Not his. Not selfishness and brutality and shame and resentment. However, his need to keep Miranda overrides any sense of morals as he provides everything she wants given she remains his possession. At first, she seems snobbish and demanding, and in some ways she is, but she is resolute about doing what she must to ultimately escape. Reading about her coping mechanisms is compelling, along with her ideas of beauty, love, violence and art which make broader statements about the state of society at that time yet still relevant today.

The way Frederick treats Miranda is perverse in certain ways, being a butterfly collector by hobby, she becomes his prized aberrational specimen. Though he believes he wants unconditional acceptance, it becomes clear what Frederick wants. Ultimately, the truth about Frederick is revealed leaving a lasting impression.

In this novel, the dynamic between captor and captive is deeply complex. The dichotomy between creating worlds to justify reality was also fascinating and the author used these elements with exacting precision. And, the character references to The Tempest are skillfully apt. The Collector is a book that resonates long after reading the last word. A psychological thriller in genre, and perhaps one of the earliest of its kind, it delves into the minds of its characters and offers brutal honesty even when the reader is hoping for an alternative reality.

I highly recommend! View all 22 comments. Dec 22, P. An adept stalker is keeping you up to date with his observations. An amateur lepidopterist, he is now on the hunt for a completely different species.

And make no mistake, he is acutely methodical about putting down the evolution of his fixation. Let us call him Fred. Fred’s father, a travelling salesman, died on the road when he was 2. His mother went off shortly after her husband died, leaving Fred to his uncle and aunt.

In turn, Uncle Dick died when F. From now on, he is taken care o An adept stalker is keeping you up to date with his observations. From now on, he is taken care of by Aunt Annie. A remarkable example of helicopter parenting, of the prig sort, and lives with his resentful disabled cousin. Apt combination for a decent, lasting guilt trip. Later on, Fred comes to work some time as a clerk in the Town Hall Annexe.

Fred wins out a formidable sum of money in the football pools. Then, Fred quits his job and is able to indulge in any of his whims and fantasies. He decides to buy a country house, one hour from London. Then in turn to adbuct Miranda and keep her captive in the cellar until Miranda grows fond of Fred. The book is divided in 4 parts, mostly 2 sections : the narrative from Fred on the one hand, Miranda’s diary on the other hand. Fred I found compelling the way John Fowles designed Fred’s personality.

A general, cursory portrayal could be : grandiose but outwardly polite, mildly quaint, meek, subdued even. For starters, he is a nostalgic, or better, he seems to be stuck, in the past or somewhere else.

Also, from the beginning he is intending to keep past events under constant check. Fred holds very clear-cut, sharp opinions on people, some of whom you should dispose of. A natural-born voyeur, he likes photography and enjoys some occasional smut, that is, when it is unnoticed by Aunt Annie.

Clinical, judgmental, Fred thinks lowly of everyone ; he looks down on lots of fellow humans and coworkers which, by the way, he does not consider he belongs to. Yet, these are not the most alarming traits and behaviour Fred harbours, miles from it.

They have yet to surface. Self-deceiving, looking for reasons, pretending and telling himself stories, rationalizing and never doubting he can tell the right from the wrong. You can’t figure out Fred, he hardly can himself. Dismissive, Fred is not taking responsibility for any of his acts, and his narrative feels off from the beginning, as though he was describing another man’s life.

In his own words : ‘As they say ; I was only like it that night ; I am not the sort. Finally, the way Fred winds up overtly self-centered even more as you could think of a adbuctor is sheerly unnerving and hateful. His very idiosyncratic use of the English language all along is only reinforcing this increasing hostility you feel in the guts towards the lowly bastard.

Finally, along with his particular upbringing, a belief in sheer luck and blind patterns is lying at the core of his worldview and conveniently makes him what he is. There’s nothing. Miranda The Collector proves also to be a story of power dynamics between captor and captive, when Miranda thinks up many tricks and ways to establish a sort of foothold on his captor. Actually, for the most part, she seems to be the one setting the pace!

Soon enough, a nasty little game ensues, with nasty little rules, provisos, promises from both parts. A nasty piece of make-belief from both. I found Miranda’s standpoint to be a convincing rendering of the wariness, the uncertainty, the strain of time, the frustration, the impatience to live, also the fascination that are likely to be part of such a ghastly predicament.

She has some fancy, irritating sentences closing entries in her diary. And also considers her fate at some point as martyrdom for the cause, for the artists, for the Few. For all her principles and eduction, she still has difficulties trying not to treat people as part of a class, or compare them as if sheer abstract types. At some point, she also misses Fred when he doesn’t come, out of deprivation of human contact.

All of the above make her a particularly convincing character. As someone who writes a diary to keep track of events and personal states, if there had been any disbelief lingering around, I have been specially willing to suspend it! Two renditions Indeed you can see you are bound to have two conflicting accounts on the gruesome events. It becomes keenly startling when you set to compare them with one another. First off, Miranda freely admits she embellishes things she have said or done.

She is openly putting an act to herself in her diary, sometimes, somewhat. Only, in her case, it is avowed, contradictory, changing, she questions her shortcomings, some questionable decisions she made in the past. Whether she can live up to her principles and survive.

Also, she drawing comparisons with characters from The Tempest by Shakespeare, from Emma, from other novels by Jane Austen Somehow trying to keep alive her capacity for wonder?

Her memories involve G. Opiniated, judgmental, outspoken, brazen, he seemed to me a manipulative, authoritarian old man. At the same time, Miranda expresses ideas about what an art should be. She is also expressing jealousy towards him for having a complicated sexual life So there is jealousy, and also a kind of guilt-trip involved here. Isn’t G. However, for all he is, G. He teaches her something about the deep nature of love and human relationships.

It may amount to a consistent explanation as to why Mirand tries to have her way in nearly every way possible with Fred: coercition, persuasion, violence, sympathy, lameducking that is, exerting herself to be kind with him. It does explain some of her contradictory thoughts about her using disloyal methods and violence towards the madman. And why I found the whole attrition and the way it ends particularly horrid In the end, I hold this book as both an absorbing novel about alienation and a fairly impressive story about story-telling.

View all 13 comments. I bought this book at some point, I don’t remember buying it. It kept falling off of the pile of mass-market books I have precariously piled up in front of some other books on one of my bookshelves. He buries her corpse in the garden. The book ends with his announcement that he plans to kidnap another girl. Literary scholars have noted the theme of class in the British caste system as a prominent point of interest in the novel.

Some scholars have compared the power struggle between Frederick and Miranda as exemplifying the Hegelian ” master—slave dialectic “, and that both exert power over one another—both physically and psychologically—despite their differences in social background.

In the Journal of Modern Literature , scholar Shyamal Bagchee attests that the novel possesses an “ironic- absurdist view” and contains a significant number of events which are hinged purely on chance.

Bagchee notes the novel’s greatest irony being that Miranda seals her own fate by continually being herself, and that through “each successive escape attempt she alienates and embitters Clegg the more. Fowles takes great care to show that Clegg is like no other person we know. It takes Miranda a long time get rid of her successive stereotyped views of Clegg as a rapist, an extortionist, or a psychotic.

She admits to an uneasy admiration of him, and this baffles her. Clegg defies stereotypical description. Furthermore, Bagchee notes Miranda’s evolution as a character only while in captivity as another paradox in the novel: “Her growing up is finally futile; she learns the true meaning of existentialist choice when, in fact, she has very limited actual choice. And she learns to understand herself and her life when, in effect, that life has come to a standstill. Bagchee notes that the divided narrative structure of the novel—which first presents the perspective of Frederick, followed by that of Miranda the latter divulged in epistolary form via scattered diary entries —has the characters mirroring each other in a manner that is “richly ironic and reveals of a sombre and frightening view of life’s hazards.

John Fowles is well established as a master of language, using a variety of tools to convey different meanings and bring his characters closer to his reader. He has written a novel which depends for its effect on total acceptance by the reader.

There is no room in it for the least hesitation, the smallest false note, for not only is it written in the first person singular, but its protagonist is a very special case indeed. Fowles’s main skill is in his use of language.

There is not a false note in his delineation of Fred. In , Mary Andrews of The Guardian wrote that “Fowles invites us to defy his main character’s excuses and read between the lines, and the facts paint a more chilling picture.

Fred doesn’t accidentally abduct Miranda, there’s a sense that he’s been leading up to this event his whole life,” and deemed Frederick Clegg “one of literature’s most evil characters.

The Collector has been adapted as a film and several times as a play. It’s also referred to in various songs, television episodes and books. The novel was adapted as a feature film by the same name in It starred Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. The novel was also loosely adapted into a Filipino film as a Bilanggo sa Dilim Prisoner in the Dark in In several cases since the novel was published, serial killers, spree killers, kidnappers , and other criminals have claimed that The Collector was the basis, the inspiration, or the justification for their crimes.

Lake is said to have been obsessed with The Collector. Lake described his plan for using the women for sex and housekeeping in a “philosophy” videotape.

Some of the techniques listed in The Collector may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.

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Loved each and every part of this book. I will definitely recommend this book to fiction, classics lovers. Your Rating:. Your Comment:.

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The Collector by John Fowles. 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.

Get A Copy. PaperbackVintage Classicspages. Published October 21st by Vintage first the collector book 1963 free download More Details Original Title. Frederick CleggMiranda Grey.

United Kingdom London, England. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Collectorplease sign up. How is this book featured in the “most disturbing book ever written” AND “best books of the 20th century”?

Also, is it PG stuff or would it be inappropriate for a high-school age person? Stefania Lazar Because having disturbing content and being a good book are not mutually exclusive. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it one of the best books of the 20 …more Because having disturbing content and being a good book are not mutually exclusive.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling it one of the best books of the 20th century, but it was very well-written. The psychological abuse, the description of both the villain’s and the victim’s attitudes vs. I’m not sure what PG means. The psychological abuse depicted here is pretty strong and the ending is veeery creepy. I think it would be too shocking for a 13 year-old kid.

Hell, it shocked me a lot, and I’ve seen many seasons of Criminal Minds : year-olds, yes, maybe. Then again, it always depends on the kid.

See all 5 questions about The Collector…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The Collector. Apr 06, Brenna rated it really liked it. Rather than go into the plot details I’d rather touch on the larger metaphors of the book in this review. Although the basic plot is chilling ссылка на продолжение on its own A man kidnaps a beautiful and intelligent young girl the parts that truly disturbed me had to do more with what I believe Fowles was saying about modern culture and the rise of the middle class.

Though this book is decidedly “British” in many ways, I think the issues he raises are applicable to any society where a large middle class is Rather than go into the plot details I’d rather touch on the larger metaphors of the book in this review.

Though this book is decidedly “British” in many ways, I think the issues he raises are applicable to any society where a large middle class is created in a relatively short amount of time. For me, this book is asking whether financial stability really leads to morality and more fulfilling lives as the collector book 1963 free download Major Barbara or if perhaps we actually lose our souls once our bellies are fed.

As some have mentioned in other reviews, Miranda is the stereotypical posh young artist. Born rich, it’s easy for her to dismiss the complaints of the lower http://replace.me/22038.txt while at the same time hurling scorn at the society that produced her. I’ve met many people like Адрес страницы especially during my Masters at Columbia School of the Arts where trust fund babies were the norm, I went to school with a Pulitzer heiress for goodness sake and usually found them boring and ссылка, quick to namedrop an artist or recite tired rhetoric.

But as her story progressed I began to like her more and more; Miranda is extremely self-aware, and I sensed that given time, she would grow out of нажмите сюда naivety and become a truly amazing woman. She is only 20 after all, barely an adult, читать больше for all her idealistic pretension she is trying to evolve and grow something that’s can’t be said for many of my Columbia peers.

That’s where the the collector book 1963 free download metaphor becomes even more apt; it’s not just that she’s a butterfly that Frederick has collected, it’s what a http://replace.me/24450.txt represents: metamorphoses. It’s almost as if Frederick has trapped her right when she was about to break out of her cocoon, halting her true the collector book 1963 free download right before she was about to spread her wings.

Which brings me to Frederick as a читать полностью for middle-class mediocrity. Reading this book, I was the collector book 1963 free download reminded of the idea that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Frederick is indifferent to everything: art, war, sex, etc. The only thing he seems to respond to is a fleeting type of beauty, and all he wants to do with that beauty is possess it. Not love it, not understand it, just possess it.

Similarly, the rise of the middle class in America and the UK should have been a renaissance of ideas once our bellies were fed. In many ways it was the civil rights and feminist movements come to mindbut in others, like the rise of reality television, celebrity culture and punditry news, our success has just made us comfortable and indifferent to human suffering. We go on collecting pop music, techno gadgets, houses, cars, spouses, designer clothes, with no question or investigation as to why.

With the internet we have the opportunity to learn about anything and everything, for the first time in history the entire history of the world is available at our fingertips. Why then does misinformation and stupidity seem to be on the rise rather then the жмите сюда Why then are we becoming less literate rather than more?

I agree with Miranda when she says art collectors are the worst offenders. The idea that art is merely an investment just like the idea that a house is merely an investment rather than a home you share your life in is abhorrent to me.

I could never stand to look ссылка an ugly painting in my home just because it was worth money, nor could I ever live with myself if I hoarded Picassos or Bacons or Kirchners purely for my own benefit.

The collector book 1963 free download the true lover of beauty and not all beauty is beautiful as Bacon proves wants to share that beauty with the world. They want everyone to see, hear, taste, feel, and enjoy that beauty so that others lives may be enriched as well. They want everyone to feel as passionately as they do about what they love, but more importantly they just want others to feel.

View all 28 comments. 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. The collector book 1963 free download are two sorts of kept women, those gold-diggers who actively sought it, and those trophy wives who had the collector book 1963 free download planned for it and had been actively courted.

This is a trophy wife by the collector book 1963 free download I read this when I was very young. This жмите сюда a trophy wife by force, not a sex slave but a ‘wife’. It’s a very original story, writing at it’s finest. And it’s creepy, very very creepy. There are a lot of excellent reviews on GR about this book, but in my opinion they all give far too much away. The book is like an onion. The outside skin, then the world within, layer upon layer.

And at it’s resolution, quite unexpectedly there is a tiny green shoot. Every detail you know about the story or the characters will take away a layer for you. View all 37 comments. Fredrick is a clerk and butterfly collector who wins some money that lets him retire. Fredrick is lonely and has trouble getting along with others, the only people he really has are his aunt and cousin. He watches an art student the collector book 1963 free download Miranda who starts to become his obsession.

When the collector book 1963 free download suddenly has a lot of free time and money on his hands, his daydreams about Miranda turn dark and he plans to kidnap her and hold her hostage in the cellar of an old cottage he buys until she gets to know him and Fredrick is a clerk and butterfly collector who wins some money that lets him retire.

The story at times becomes slightly uncomfortable due to the nature of the situation, and you do have to read between the lines at times to see what kind of person Fred is, as obviously he does not give us his full nature in what he narrates. As for Miranda, we actually see her starting to grow up and mature as the story continues, whilst also recognising the sheer scale of her predicament.

In all this is tightly woven, and I believe that although the author originally wrote this in a frenzy over three or four weeks, it was about another year before it was ready for publication as things were altered and the story sharpened.

We all know that such things go on, with women suddenly becoming released or escaping a demented captor, but by giving us this tale in a novel form so we are able to perhaps appreciate what happens in a different light, and how the obsessed does not realise that they are perhaps different and are not aware of the ultimate damage they do.

It has to be admitted that John Fowles does show a strong amount of restraint, as he could easily have then gone on to write a continuation to this and made his name perhaps by an easier way. I for one am glad he did not, as he showed his versatility and genius by producing other great reads for us.

Well, I might not ever sleep again now. A man kidnaps a woman and takes her to his remote farm, keeps her locked up and wants her to love him. The story starts well enough in London where the woman studies and then we see her taken to a remote and ficitonal farm somewhere near Lewes in Sussex. Oh my word. Horror fans will love it and I bet the film is even more chilling and uncomfortable. I finished it today and am still processing but ended up whizzing through the latter part of the story as I was finding it somewhat uninteresting.

It’s a nice twist to tell the story from a different point of view – and Miranda’s insights into her captor, class, art and so on, are quite interesting but I found the frequent diversions to her love life and friends a little too much and fundamentally irrelevant to the main story. Understand that this is somewhat more than a kidnapping story and has a more literary bent, but a little too much so for my taste at times when it wonders off on a flight of fancy about what Miranda thinks about things and her yearnings outside of the situation she is in.

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East Dane Designer Men’s Fashion. Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands. Deals and Shenanigans. Ring Smart Home Security Systems. Blink Smart Security for Every Home. PillPack Pharmacy Simplified. It’s also referred to in various songs, television episodes and books. The novel was adapted as a feature film by the same name in It starred Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. The novel was also loosely adapted into a Filipino film as a Bilanggo sa Dilim Prisoner in the Dark in In several cases since the novel was published, serial killers, spree killers, kidnappers , and other criminals have claimed that The Collector was the basis, the inspiration, or the justification for their crimes.

Lake is said to have been obsessed with The Collector. Lake described his plan for using the women for sex and housekeeping in a “philosophy” videotape.

The two are believed to have murdered at least 25 people, including two entire families. Although Lake had committed several crimes in the Ukiah, California , area, his “Operation Miranda” did not begin until after he moved to remote Wilseyville, California.

The videotapes of his murders and a diary written by Lake were found buried near the bunker in Wilseyville. They revealed that Lake had named his plot Operation Miranda after the character in Fowles’ book.

In , Robert Berdella held his male victims captive and photographed their torture before killing them. He claimed that the film version of The Collector had been his inspiration when he was a teenager. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see The Collector disambiguation. Main articles: Leonard Lake and Charles Ng. Binghamton, New York. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 July The Guardian.

Retrieved 15 February The peeks inside his mind, while presented as normal thoughts on his part, are truly chilling to us readers who are sane.

I shivered to read some of the things he was thinking. These psychological tics and the detached way in which they were presented were what made this book great. You can see how I’m torn here between being unsatisfied, while at the same time finding some portions of The Collector to be outstanding. To today’s jaded horror readers? This might not be the book for you. But to fans of stories like Silence of the Lambs, or even Red Dragon, I think this book will appeal, even though some of the themes are a bit outdated.

It’s to them that I recommend The Collector. Shelves: unreliable-narrators , recs-mom , full-of-wonderful , owned-ebook , eek-the-creepies , He wants me living-but-dead. 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 Frederick’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. She writes about G. To Miranda, G. 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. Always sneering at him, jabbing him, hating him and showing it.

But linked destiny. Like being shipwrecked on an island—a raft—together. In every way not wanting to be together. But together. 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. View all 48 comments. Jun 25, Lisa rated it it was amazing Shelves: books-to-read-before-you-die. And I answered: “It is not about that at all, and it is one of the most suspenseful and scary novels I ever read!

One just rarely thinks of the fact that you kill them and pierce them with a needle to be able to look at “Oh”, said a friend, taking this novel off my shelf. One just rarely thinks of the fact that you kill them and pierce them with a needle to be able to look at their beautiful wings at your leisure instead of chasing after them flying free. So the cover and title say it all, just not straightforward. I guess this book made me a strong supporter of butterflies’ right to fly View all 9 comments.

May 30, Michael rated it it was amazing Shelves: unreliable-narrator. One of the first dark psychological thrillers–at least in modern times though depending on how you categorize them, James or Poe or even some of the ancient Greeks might usefully be described this way, too. A tale of obsession and art and butterflies–need I say more? Wonderful for those who take their fiction black. What’s especially interesting here is the sheer banality of Frederick’s evil.

He kidnaps Miranda, then doesn’t really know what to do or how to relate to her as an actual person One of the first dark psychological thrillers–at least in modern times though depending on how you categorize them, James or Poe or even some of the ancient Greeks might usefully be described this way, too.

He kidnaps Miranda, then doesn’t really know what to do or how to relate to her as an actual person instead of as an object. View all 7 comments.

Dec 19, Peter rated it really liked it. That was quite an interesting piece of fiction. A collector of butterflies is obsessed with a girl and finally kidnaps her when he comes to a fortune. She desperately tries to escape her remote prison and the relationsship between those completely different characters is shown in an impressive way.

There is a kind of narration by the male character and one of the female character, the victim, in form of a diary. I won’t spoil the ending but this read was quite captivating. They characters in his That was quite an interesting piece of fiction.

They characters in his novel come from different walks of life and the sub-plot is exactly about society and Caliban like characters.

Many allusions to art and literature delight the well read reader. I’ve never read any novel like this before. Clearly recommended! View all 4 comments. Jul 04, J. 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. 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. 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.

Feb 22, F rated it it was amazing Shelves: , uk. Loved – so creepy! View all 3 comments. 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 A great pal of mine, who shall remain nameless, is a collector. 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 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.

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.

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.. View all 6 comments. Oh boy what did I just read?! This was most definitely a strange sinister and creepy story. Beyond the obvious depraved strangeness of the whole scenario he had no backbone!

Nothing going for him. Strange strange. Obsession, power and a beautiful captured butterfly in the form of Miranda and you get a wicked little story with plenty of arty metaphors to chew on. I almost loved this book but not every second of it.

The story flagged for me once the perspective shifted to Miranda. When a book is being lauded as some kind of bible for a number of murderers and serial killers, then of course it will attract my attention.

The Collector follows a butterfly collector who diverts his obsession with collecting onto a beautiful stranger, an art student named Miranda. I was so sure The Collector would become a new favourite, the premise is deliciously dark and disturbing, a man obsessed with a woman, intent on kidnapping her and making her fall in love with him. I felt like I just wanted it to go further The first half is fantastic, as we are inside the mind of the collector, Frederick. But the ending is pretty strong, so you do finish on a high note!

All in all, really glad I read it. Incredibly well-written and crazy addictive for the most part. This was a little weird and slightly uncomfortable but throughly entertaining and memorable. Oct 03, J. I thought this was just a brilliant novel by John Fowles. Very unsettling, and very chilling, with enough plot twists to keep you guessing. Highly recommended. Jul 24, Richard Derus rated it really liked it.

Real Rating: 3. It was a dark and stormy day in Austin, Texas, in This book deeply unsettled me, left me trying to comprehend what the heck I was experiencing. What a great way to get a something passionate reader to buy all your books! Now, reading them This was the oldest book of hi Real Rating: 3. This was the oldest book of his I could find after reading A Maggot , which also blew me away.

But these words, this exceedingly dark book, this awful nightmare of an experience from Miranda’s PoV anyway was just so very very unsettling I couldn’t go deeper into this strange and disturbing psyche. I might not sleep, and that’s a lot more serious a problem than it was in my 20s. Your Comment:. Read Online Download. Great book, The Collector pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone. Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:.

Mantissa by John Fowles.

 
 

 

The Collector by John Fowles.The Collector

 

The first edition of the collector book 1963 free download novel was published inand was written by John Fowles. The посмотреть больше was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Paperback format.

The main characters of this fiction, classics story are Frederick Clegg, Miranda Grey. The book has been awarded withand many others. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are collectoor fictional or claimed to work by its creator. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in The Collector may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.

DMCA and Copyright : The book is collctor hosted on our servers, to remove the file please contact the source url. If you see a Google Drive link instead of source url, means that the file witch you will get after approval is just a summary of original book or the file has been already removed.

Loved each and every part of this book. I will definitely recommend this book to fiction, classics lovers. Dowload Rating:. Your Comment:. Read Online Download. Great book, The Collector pdf is enough to raise the goose bumps alone. Add a review Your Rating: Your Comment:. Mantissa by John Fowles. The Ebony Tower by John Fowles. La donna del tenente francese by John Fowles. The collector book 1963 free download Maggot by John Fowles.

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright.

Enter your mobile number or email address below and we’ll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer – no Kindle device required. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Evil has seldom been so sinister. 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.

As a horror story, this book is a remarkable tour de force. Read more Read less. Previous page. Print length. Little, Brown and Company. Publication date. December 1, File size. Page Flip. Word Wise. Enhanced typesetting. See all details. Next page. Customers who bought this item also bought.

Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. The Magus. John Fowles. Kindle Edition. The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Daniel Martin. A Maggot. The Ebony Tower. The Wasp Factory: A Novel. Iain Banks. Customers who read this book also read. A Short Stay in Hell. Steven L.

Amazon Business: Make the most of your Amazon Business account with exclusive tools and savings. Login now. Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc. In this chilling archetypal tale of good and evil, a beautiful, idealistic young woman studying art in London is kidnapped by a startlingly ordinary young man who wants only to keep her–like the butterflies he has collected before her.

James Wilby is superb as the collector, by turns angry, indignant, whining, and threatening, and the terrified, but defiant, prisoner waging war against her captor while in secret journals struggling to come to terms with her past and present. Despite a lengthy digression on the meaning of art and the British class struggle, this powerful reading of a haunting tale will echo in the reader’s psyche long after the words fade away.

The success of his first novel, The Collector, published in , allowed him to devote all his time to writing. Fowles spent the last decades of his life on the southern coast of England in the small harbor town of Lyme Regis.

Read more. Customer reviews. How are ratings calculated? Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Reviews with images. See all customer images. Top reviews Most recent Top reviews. Top reviews from the United States. There was a problem filtering reviews right now.

Please try again later. Verified Purchase. Frederick Clegg is a simple man who led a lonely life. Working as a town clerk, Frederick tries to make friends, but his oddities prevent any real connections. Miranda Grey is a vibrant twenty year-old art student from an affluent middle class family.

Her life seems to be bright and full of potential until she encounters Frederick. Waking bound and gagged in a cellar, her life drastically changes. To her credit, Miranda is determined to take steps necessary to survive. However, his need to keep Miranda overrides any sense of morals as he provides everything she wants given she remains his possession. At first, she seems snobbish and demanding, and in some ways she is, but she is resolute about doing what she must to ultimately escape.

Reading about her coping mechanisms is compelling, along with her ideas of beauty, love, violence and art which make broader statements about the state of society at that time yet still relevant today. The way Frederick treats Miranda is perverse in certain ways, being a butterfly collector by hobby, she becomes his prized aberrational specimen.

Though he believes he wants unconditional acceptance, it becomes clear what Frederick wants. Ultimately, the truth about Frederick is revealed leaving a lasting impression. In this novel, the dynamic between captor and captive is deeply complex. The dichotomy between creating worlds to justify reality was also fascinating and the author used these elements with exacting precision. And, the character references to The Tempest are skillfully apt. The Collector is a book that resonates long after reading the last word.

A psychological thriller in genre, and perhaps one of the earliest of its kind, it delves into the minds of its characters and offers brutal honesty even when the reader is hoping for an alternative reality.

I highly recommend! I can see where the book is ahead of it’s time. But, in today’s psychological thrillers. This book is slow and bland. Not being disrespectable here. The story starts with a lonely man Frederick Clegg that has come by with a large sum of money and now he can buy anything he wants.

But Clegg is so damaged and different he longs for Miranda a young and beautiful art student. He watches her, he loves her in his weird way. All he wants is for her to love him. He plans for her and builds the perfect place for her.

Then he waits for the right time to take her for his own. He lures her to his van and he chloroforms her and kidnaps her. The story is about how he wants to control her, but at first he does not want to hurt her.

He wants to love her and he wants her to love him. Miranda does everything she can to make him let her go. But, she makes one mistake and Frederick’s feeling for her change.

He no longer believes her or will help her as much. Danggit, I really wanted to like this book. I think probably I just found the premise dated. Maybe when it first came out decades ago it had more punch.

Unfortunately for me, this punching bag was out of air. But the book gets lots of very positive reviews. Try it for yourself and let me know what you thought. I wish more paperback publishers were as thoughtful. Furthermore, this book doesn’t have to over-rely on gruesome details or graphic imagery to convey a touching story into the mind of the reader.

I definitely did not expect the ending and almost didn’t see there was a chapter four lurking back there. Author does a good job of providing suspense. My only complaint is that the book could have been shorter by cutting the endless ranting about G.

I know, I get it, it serves as very important character development for Emma and to give the reader further insight as to her behavior in relationship to “Caliban,” but after like one hundred pages of it I literally sighed and wanted to punch G. Otherwise, the development of both characters is excellent.

The Collector – Kindle edition by Fowles, John. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Collector/5(K). Dec 23,  · Book Collector on bit and bit PCs. This download is licensed as shareware for the Windows operating system from cataloging software and can be used as a free trial until the trial period ends (after an unspecified number of days). The replace.me Book Collector demo is available to all software users as a free download /5(61). “The Collector” By John Fowles 2 1 When she was home from her boarding-school I used to see her almost every day sometimes, because their house was right opposite the Town Hall Annexe. She and her younger sister used to go in and out a lot, often with young men, which of course I didn’t replace.me Size: KB. The Collector is the story of a man named Frederick – a bit of an odd duck and a collector of butterflies – who, upon winning a rather large pool of money, decides to collect and observe a new specimen – the lovely Miranda. Here’s yet another book that’s been on my TBR for 4/5(K). The Collector is a thriller novel by English author John Fowles, in his literary replace.me plot follows a lonely, psychotic young man who kidnaps a female art student in London and holds her captive in the cellar of his rural farmhouse. Divided in two sections, the novel contains both the perspective of the captor, Frederick, as well as that of Miranda, the replace.me: John Fowles.

The first edition of the novel was published in , and was written by John Fowles. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Paperback format.

The main characters of this fiction, classics story are Frederick Clegg, Miranda Grey. The book has been awarded with , and many others. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator.

We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in The Collector may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them. DMCA and Copyright : The book is not hosted on our servers, to remove the file please contact the source url.

If you see a Google Drive link instead of source url, means that the file witch you will get after approval is just a summary of original book or the file has been already removed. Loved each and every part of this book. Verified Purchase. Frederick Clegg is a simple man who led a lonely life. Working as a town clerk, Frederick tries to make friends, but his oddities prevent any real connections. Miranda Grey is a vibrant twenty year-old art student from an affluent middle class family.

Her life seems to be bright and full of potential until she encounters Frederick. Waking bound and gagged in a cellar, her life drastically changes. To her credit, Miranda is determined to take steps necessary to survive.

However, his need to keep Miranda overrides any sense of morals as he provides everything she wants given she remains his possession. At first, she seems snobbish and demanding, and in some ways she is, but she is resolute about doing what she must to ultimately escape. Reading about her coping mechanisms is compelling, along with her ideas of beauty, love, violence and art which make broader statements about the state of society at that time yet still relevant today.

The way Frederick treats Miranda is perverse in certain ways, being a butterfly collector by hobby, she becomes his prized aberrational specimen. Though he believes he wants unconditional acceptance, it becomes clear what Frederick wants. Ultimately, the truth about Frederick is revealed leaving a lasting impression. In this novel, the dynamic between captor and captive is deeply complex.

The dichotomy between creating worlds to justify reality was also fascinating and the author used these elements with exacting precision. And, the character references to The Tempest are skillfully apt. The Collector is a book that resonates long after reading the last word.

A psychological thriller in genre, and perhaps one of the earliest of its kind, it delves into the minds of its characters and offers brutal honesty even when the reader is hoping for an alternative reality. I highly recommend! I can see where the book is ahead of it’s time. But, in today’s psychological thrillers. This book is slow and bland. Not being disrespectable here. The story starts with a lonely man Frederick Clegg that has come by with a large sum of money and now he can buy anything he wants.

But Clegg is so damaged and different he longs for Miranda a young and beautiful art student. He watches her, he loves her in his weird way. All he wants is for her to love him. He plans for her and builds the perfect place for her. Then he waits for the right time to take her for his own.

He lures her to his van and he chloroforms her and kidnaps her. The story is about how he wants to control her, but at first he does not want to hurt her.

He wants to love her and he wants her to love him. Miranda does everything she can to make him let her go. But, she makes one mistake and Frederick’s feeling for her change.

He no longer believes her or will help her as much. Danggit, I really wanted to like this book. I think probably I just found the premise dated.

Maybe when it first came out decades ago it had more punch. Unfortunately for me, this punching bag was out of air. But the book gets lots of very positive reviews. Try it for yourself and let me know what you thought. I wish more paperback publishers were as thoughtful. Furthermore, this book doesn’t have to over-rely on gruesome details or graphic imagery to convey a touching story into the mind of the reader. I definitely did not expect the ending and almost didn’t see there was a chapter four lurking back there.

Author does a good job of providing suspense. My only complaint is that the book could have been shorter by cutting the endless ranting about G.

I know, I get it, it serves as very important character development for Emma and to give the reader further insight as to her behavior in relationship to “Caliban,” but after like one hundred pages of it I literally sighed and wanted to punch G. Otherwise, the development of both characters is excellent. Emma’s part is of profound importance in thoroughly painting no pun intended Frederick, and by the fourth chapter you get an outstanding picture of who these two people are.

I was worried that this book might have just been a lot of hype on the coattails of the Charles Ng and Leonard Lake case, but it really is a powerfully sad novel that stands on its own merits. I really wanted to love this book, but I just can’t; the writer’s style doesn’t float my boat.

The plot isn’t as interesting as it could have been and goes along a very vague storyline. Do we know why this man has the issues he does? The describing factors in this book are lackluster, and the author has a strong liking for the word “Well” and the word “Etcetera” and I mean STRONG liking, to the point where it gets really annoying to read this book for long periods of time. I won’t give away anything else, other than the story doesn’t have take any twists and turns down a shocking ending, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

See all reviews. Top reviews from other countries. I recommend this to anyone wanting to learn more about how perspective can influence the reader in literature. The first half is from the point of view of the ‘Collector’, who manages to paint himself as a fairly sympathetic figure I read this when I was quite young, so an older reader might see through the narrator a little more quickly than I did. Despite the sad subject matter, I absolutely love this book.

Required reading for any English student, and any aspiring writer. It certainly inspired me to start working on my own novels! Frederick is a rather pathetic loner who collects butterflies and is infatuated by a beautiful student, Miranda. When he wins a large amount of money he concocts a plan to add her to his collection. My favourite part of The Collector was the opening paragraph. It set the story up perfectly. The first part of the novel is from Frederick’s POV and details his preparations, the abduction, and the weeks that follow.

The reader gets a fascinating insight into Frederick’s mind and the battle of wits with Miranda, although it becomes tedious in places. The second part is basically the same story from Miranda’s POV, but told in a completely different way, which also provides an interesting insight. There is a lot more introspection in this section, with Miranda reminiscing about her past and recording her thoughts in a hidden diary.

This also becomes monotonous in places, but serves to show her state of mind wandering as things progress. The final part of the book is told by Frederick and forms the conclusion. I thought the ending suited the novel perfectly.

A well-written and fascinating novel that drags in places due to repetitiveness and rambling, but well worth a read. John Fowles definitely made a splash on the literary scene when he debuted with this book, and it is easy to see why, as it still holds the same power that it did back in We then finish with the last two sections from Frederick again. We thus meet Fred and see that he is a loner and collector of butterflies, and also works in the offices of the local council. But all this is to change when he has a big win on the Pools.

We can already see that he has an obsession with Miranda, a young student that he has been watching. And now we see how far he will go with his obsession, with a new object to collect. By reading the first two parts so we can see how Miranda and Fred have different perspectives on the same incidents, and how they interact in the strange situation of warder and prisoner. Taking in class, sexual dysfunction and culture, this also has a large slice of irony and absurdism, making for what is a thoughtful and gripping read, as we follow through to the end.

Fowles also deceives us somewhat, because if you think about it, with the first-person narrative form for Fred we think we have worked out the final conclusion, only to see later that we have not.

The story at times becomes slightly uncomfortable due to the nature of the situation, and you do have to read between the lines at times to see what kind of person Fred is, as obviously he does not give us his full nature in what he narrates. As for Miranda, we actually see her starting to grow up and mature as the story continues, whilst also recognising the sheer scale of her predicament. In all this is tightly woven, and I believe that although the author originally wrote this in a frenzy over three or four weeks, it was about another year before it was ready for publication as things were altered and the story sharpened.

We all know that such things go on, with women suddenly becoming released or escaping a demented captor, but by giving us this tale in a novel form so we are able to perhaps appreciate what happens in a different light, and how the obsessed does not realise that they are perhaps different and are not aware of the ultimate damage they do.

It has to be admitted that John Fowles does show a strong amount of restraint, as he could easily have then gone on to write a continuation to this and made his name perhaps by an easier way. I for one am glad he did not, as he showed his versatility and genius by producing other great reads for us.

Well, I might not ever sleep again now.

The Collector is a thriller novel by English author John Fowles , in his literary debut. Its plot follows a lonely, psychotic young man who kidnaps a female art student in London and holds her captive in the cellar of his rural farmhouse. Divided in two sections, the novel contains both the perspective of the captor, Frederick, as well as that of Miranda, the captive. The portion of the novel told from Miranda’s perspective is presented in epistolary form.

Fowles wrote the novel between November and March It was adapted into an Academy Award -nominated feature film of the same name in starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar.

The novel is about a lonely young man, Frederick Clegg, who works as a clerk in a city hall and collects butterflies in his spare time. The first part of the novel tells the story from his point of view. He admires her from a distance but is unable to make any contact with her because he is socially underdeveloped.

One day, he wins a large prize in the football pools. He quits his job and buys an isolated house in the countryside. He feels lonely, however, and wants to be with Miranda.

Unable to make any normal contact, Clegg decides to add her to his “collection” of pretty, preserved objects, in the hope that if he keeps her captive long enough, she will grow to love him.

After careful preparations, he kidnaps Miranda by drugging her with chloroform and locks her up in the cellar of his house. He is convinced that Miranda will start to love him after some time. However, when she wakes up, she confronts him with his actions. Clegg is embarrassed and promises to let her go after a month. He promises to show her “every respect”, pledging not to sexually molest her and to shower her with gifts and the comforts of home, on one condition: she can’t leave the cellar.

The second part of the novel is narrated by Miranda in the form of fragments from a diary that she keeps during her captivity. Miranda reminisces over her previous life throughout this section of the novel; and many of her diary entries are written either to her sister or to a man named G. Miranda reveals that G. At first, Miranda thinks that Clegg has sexual motives for abducting her; but, as his true character begins to be revealed, she realises that this is not true.

She begins to pity her captor, comparing him to Caliban in Shakespeare ‘s play The Tempest because of his hopeless obsession with her. Clegg tells Miranda that his first name is Ferdinand eventual winner of Miranda’s affections in The Tempest. Miranda tries to escape several times, but Clegg stops her. She also tries to seduce him to convince him to let her go. The only result is that he becomes confused and angry. As Clegg repeatedly refuses to release her, she begins to fantasize about killing him.

After a failed attempt to do so, Miranda enters a period of self-loathing. She decides that to kill Clegg would lower her to his level. She refrains from any further attempts to do so. Before she can try to escape again, she becomes seriously ill and dies. The third part of the novel is narrated by Clegg.

At first, he wants to commit suicide after he finds Miranda dead; but, after he reads in her diary that she never loved him, he decides that he is not responsible for what happened to her and is better off without her.

He buries her corpse in the garden. The book ends with his announcement that he plans to kidnap another girl. Literary scholars have noted the theme of class in the British caste system as a prominent point of interest in the novel. Some scholars have compared the power struggle between Frederick and Miranda as exemplifying the Hegelian ” master—slave dialectic “, and that both exert power over one another—both physically and psychologically—despite their differences in social background.

In the Journal of Modern Literature , scholar Shyamal Bagchee attests that the novel possesses an “ironic- absurdist view” and contains a significant number of events which are hinged purely on chance. Bagchee notes the novel’s greatest irony being that Miranda seals her own fate by continually being herself, and that through “each successive escape attempt she alienates and embitters Clegg the more.

Fowles takes great care to show that Clegg is like no other person we know. It takes Miranda a long time get rid of her successive stereotyped views of Clegg as a rapist, an extortionist, or a psychotic. She admits to an uneasy admiration of him, and this baffles her.

Clegg defies stereotypical description. Furthermore, Bagchee notes Miranda’s evolution as a character only while in captivity as another paradox in the novel: “Her growing up is finally futile; she learns the true meaning of existentialist choice when, in fact, she has very limited actual choice. And she learns to understand herself and her life when, in effect, that life has come to a standstill.

Bagchee notes that the divided narrative structure of the novel—which first presents the perspective of Frederick, followed by that of Miranda the latter divulged in epistolary form via scattered diary entries —has the characters mirroring each other in a manner that is “richly ironic and reveals of a sombre and frightening view of life’s hazards.

John Fowles is well established as a master of language, using a variety of tools to convey different meanings and bring his characters closer to his reader. He has written a novel which depends for its effect on total acceptance by the reader.

There is no room in it for the least hesitation, the smallest false note, for not only is it written in the first person singular, but its protagonist is a very special case indeed. Fowles’s main skill is in his use of language. There is not a false note in his delineation of Fred. In , Mary Andrews of The Guardian wrote that “Fowles invites us to defy his main character’s excuses and read between the lines, and the facts paint a more chilling picture.

Fred doesn’t accidentally abduct Miranda, there’s a sense that he’s been leading up to this event his whole life,” and deemed Frederick Clegg “one of literature’s most evil characters.

The Collector has been adapted as a film and several times as a play. It’s also referred to in various songs, television episodes and books. The novel was adapted as a feature film by the same name in It starred Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar. The novel was also loosely adapted into a Filipino film as a Bilanggo sa Dilim Prisoner in the Dark in In several cases since the novel was published, serial killers, spree killers, kidnappers , and other criminals have claimed that The Collector was the basis, the inspiration, or the justification for their crimes.

Lake is said to have been obsessed with The Collector. Lake described his plan for using the women for sex and housekeeping in a “philosophy” videotape. The two are believed to have murdered at least 25 people, including two entire families.

Although Lake had committed several crimes in the Ukiah, California , area, his “Operation Miranda” did not begin until after he moved to remote Wilseyville, California. The videotapes of his murders and a diary written by Lake were found buried near the bunker in Wilseyville.

They revealed that Lake had named his plot Operation Miranda after the character in Fowles’ book. In , Robert Berdella held his male victims captive and photographed their torture before killing them. He claimed that the film version of The Collector had been his inspiration when he was a teenager. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For other uses, see The Collector disambiguation.

Main articles: Leonard Lake and Charles Ng. Binghamton, New York. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 July The Guardian. Retrieved 15 February Retrieved 2 May Archived from the original on 10 February Works by John Fowles. The Aristos The Tree Wormholes Namespaces Article Talk.

Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. First edition. Tom Adams.

Мне кажется, что тут содержится некий намек на то, что это за цифра. В тексте названы Хиросима и Нагасаки, города, разрушенные атомными бомбами. Может быть, ключ связан с количеством человеческих жертв, оценочной суммой нанесенного ущерба в долларах… – Она замолчала, снова вчитываясь в текст.

«Следопыт»? – Он, похоже, был озадачен.  – «Следопыт» вышел на Хейла. – «Следопыт» так и не вернулся.

Тот, что Танкадо держал при. Сьюзан была настолько ошеломлена, что отказывалась понимать слова коммандера. – О чем вы говорите.