When was the collector by john fowles set

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like Silence of the Lambs, or even Red Dragon, I think this book will appeal, even though some of the themes are a bit outdated.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: eek-the-creepies , owned-ebook , recs-mom , full-of-wonderful , unreliable-narrators. 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. 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. 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. 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. This was a little weird and slightly uncomfortable but throughly entertaining and memorable.

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: damaged , thriller-suspense-mystery , classics , darkish-to-depths-of-hell , bbs-challenge. 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. I walked along the central ridge, westwards, between the two vast views north and south. Lizards flashed up the pine trunks like living emerald necklaces. There was thyme and rosemary, and other herbs; bushes with flowers like dandelions dipped in sky, a wild, lambent blue.

Unfortunately Fowles was not as enamored of the school itself, where he was expected to recreate for the Greek boys the sort of regimented environment that he had detested when attending Bedford. Fowles subsequently returned to England and continued his teaching career, while concurrently working on various drafts of The Magus. He also began keeping an enormous diary, to which he has contributed faithfully ever since the first volume of his collected journals was recently published in the U.

In he married Elizabeth, who was to become not only his companion but also his muse. By he had written part or all of several novels, but his first attempt to become published was not until early , when he submitted a travel book to a literary agent. The agent enjoyed the book but suggested to Fowles that his skills were more suited to writing fiction. Taking this advice to heart, Fowles began work on The Collector, convinced a small-scale book rather than one of his longer pieces would be more marketable as a first novel.

Fowles wrote the first draft in less than a month. In July , he took his manuscript to Tom Maschler, the literary director at Jonathan Cape who was to become his life-long editor and good friend. Maschler was electrified by The Collector, concluding that he had never read such a well-written first novel, and a deal with Cape was quickly sealed.

The Collector tells the story of Frederick Clegg, a repressed and socially- marginal bank clerk whose hobby is collecting butterflies. Clegg wins a fortune in the lottery and buys a remote estate in the country, then kidnaps a beautiful and strong-willed young art student, Miranda, whom he has been watching from afar.

What has since become a common theme in many lurid tales is handled with taste and sensitivity by Fowles. Clegg is not primarily interested in sex with Miranda; rather, he simply wants to possess her like one of his specimens. The Collector appeared in and was an immediate critical and commercial success. An interesting and rare variation to the British edition features black boards in lieu of the standard rust color, perhaps indicating a test run by Cape prior to the actual first printing.

Not wanting to be labeled as only a novelist, Fowles chose an unconventional follow-up to The Collector: a non-fiction book of philosophical musings entitled The Aristos. Although it appeared after the U. Fowles was now ready to pursue completion of The Magus, a novel that had haunted him for more than a decade.

Reality and fantasy are deliberately confused as Conchis takes Nicholas on a roller coaster ride of staged deaths, erotic encounters and ultimate betrayal.

Forced to confront his past transgressions and self-delusions, Nicholas learns valuable lessons about the meaning of life, love, hazard and free will. In the novel, he seamlessly incorporates a wide-ranging knowledge of a variety of disciplines without being heavy-handed while at the same time spinning a narrative web from which it is nearly impossible to break away.

Its ambiguous ending tends to catch many readers off guard, yet is completely in keeping with the life lesson that Conchis is attempting to share with Nicholas, and Fowles with his readers. The existential quest of Nicholas in The Magus, while orchestrated by the God-like Conchis, is grounded in the random complexities of everyday life; success is ultimately dependent on the achievement of self-knowledge, along with the ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Although it initially received mixed reviews in England, The Magus was widely hailed by critics in the United States. The Magus was published by Little Brown in January although the copyright page says ; the British version from Cape appeared a few months later. The dust jacket once again features a stunning design by Tom Adams and, as with The Collector, the basic difference between the two versions is simply the size of the books the U.

A small quantity of the Cape first editions featured a red wrap-around band, and copies with this intact are rare. Unfortunately, the film failed to capture the essence of the novel and was utterly confusing to those who had not read the book, prompting scathing reviews. It was considered such a bomb that Woody Allen once said if he had his life to live over again, he would want everything exactly the same with the exception of seeing The Magus. In fact, the movie The Game starring Michael Douglas borrowed many of its plot points and themes, so much so that Fowles considered suing the producers for copyright infringement.

After writing the first draft in about nine months, he spent the next two years revising, working line-by-line to create the illusion of Victorian prose and dialogue by lengthening sentences, deleting contractions and employing digressions. The result is a portrayal of England in that accurately captures various facets of the time—social conventions, class struggles, etc. This puts him in a difficult position as he is already engaged to Ernestina, the innocent daughter of a prominent businessman.

The novel also includes several authorial intrusions, with omniscient narrator Fowles speaking directly to the reader about the mores of life in Victorian England and various possible outcomes for his characters. He initially feared the book would be too cerebral for popular audiences, but in fact it was both a huge critical and commercial success. Reviews were outstanding on both sides of the Atlantic, and Fowles received the W. 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.