Customer Reviews

The Collector

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Fantastic book. His writing style is rare and wonderful. You don't often read a book and really get into the minds of the characters the way you do with this book.
I wonder how much Stephen King was influenced by John Fowles writing style? Definite similarities.
I'm officially a John Fowles fan now and will collect first editions of his other books as well.

Sharp, overall effect is well written with realistic clarity and points of view. Transfixed by the characters. The plot was probably shocking in its day. Channeling Anne Frank

Mr Fowles has such a gift for getting the reader into the head of the subject. I really enjoyed this book. The way the book is crafted from the prospective of the two subjects was inventive and enlightening. I thought it was well balanced regarding the male female relationship and their reactions to the progress of the book. I would recomend this book to anyone looking to really excape for the duration of the book.

This book is definitely intriguing, so if that is your goal when buying a new book, then you'll love this book. Its completely unique and original in plot and in character. I love the way that it gets into the minds of the main characters.

I, personally, had a really hard time reading/liking this book. Miranda reminded me too much of myself, and my frustration about being "trapped" in this book only grew as I read it. I became so utterly frustrated that it was difficult to read this book at all for me. I suppose in that sense, the writer, Fowles, is ingenious in that I experienced his written emotion so palpably.

And for any plot readers, this is not a book for you. While the beginning offers promise in the plot department, you will be disappointed with the end.

The Collector...well, where does one begin when concerning such an exhilirating but macabre piece? The reader witnesses the degenerating nature of a man who has been isolated from human society due to it's insoluble isolation and expectations of what one should be like. Clegg falls victim to the intricacies of love, and Miranda a figure who, is perhaps an emblem of the affects of the human condition (imposed by man, himself) who is severed but learns a vital lesson concerning the importance of life. If one wants a challenge, and desires to explore the different meanings interwoven into a sensitive yet powerfully written piece, then 'The Collector' is defiantely a text to read.

I had to read this book for my Honors World Lit. class last year, and it was truely one of the best books ive ever read. Fowles splits the book up into to parts, the first half is through "Ferdinand's" view point, and the second half is through Miranda's. This allows more depth, along with the ability to understand the characters and what was going on in there minds when they did certain things, like stalking miranda and kidnapping her. i never saw the end of the book coming, it was like....wow......i couldnt put this book down so i finished it about 2 weeks before everyone in my class did (all of which agreed that it was an excellent read) and as i sat in class reading other books i would occasionally look up and see the expressions on my classmates faces as they came to some of the most shocking parts, especially some of miranda's responses to fred's love.

A young woman is abducted by a man who's grown obsessed with her in the previous months (or years), and wants her to fall in love with him too. But once she's in his power, he is at a loss what to do with her ..
The story is told from his point of view, and then hers, which provides the reader with a distorted yet deeply interesting account of the same events. John Fowles's observations are very cruel but also very, very true - people like Frederick, his hero, can never fit in. They can only use violence to serve their own purposes - but even that does not always work - as you cannot force somebody's mind .. in the story, the woman never acts as he expects or would like her to, and it's very obvious she doesn't belong to his world, and never will.
Which can only lead to tragedy, even if people don't want things to end this way.
The plot of the Collector reminds me of stories by Edogawa Ranpo or Ernesto Sabato - I remember the former wrote a weird novel about a masseur using women's bodies to fulfill his desire for Perfect Beauty.
That said, Fowles mostly reminds me of the best writers/analyzers of the human mind like Kellerman or Mac Ewan.
But he's also a great writer of his own right .. I first read the Collector more than 10 years ago, when I only was in my early teens ... and it's still as good as it was at the time.

This book is divided into the abductor's point of view and the abductees. I was very drawn into it for the abductor as he described the difficulty of keeping his prisoner. Once I read about the girl and her thoughts, I hoped he would kill her. I won't spoil it for you. She needed to die though.

Set in London, Fowles takes us on a journey through a young man's dimented mind, whilst glimpsing into the dreams of an intelligent young girl. It pulls you into a tug of war over good intentions and obsessive romance. After stalking a young girl for some time, Fred Clegg fianlly "pins" her to the floor of his 17th century cottage's cellar. Beware of feeling sypathy for the wrong person... A good read, enaging, suspenseful, and mischevious. Not for the squeamish.

when i finished reading 'THE COLLECTOR', i threw the book across the room in frustration and disgust. such is the power of john fowles, luring the reader deeper and deeper into a world of twisted fantasy which is portrayed in a terrifyingly realistic fashion. the book centres around two characters, fred clegg, a quietly insane and lonely man who loves to collect butterflies (hence the name of the book - a strong metaphor), and miranda, a girl that he imprisons in his house so that she can know and love him. clegg feels disadvantaged in many ways, and so takes out all his feelings of rejection and inadequacy on his unfortunate prisoner. i have read some reviews that suggest that the book should not have been divided into sections - miranda's and clegg's - and on this point i would have to entirely disagree. the juxtapositioning of the two points of view is the very essence of the story, showing the two sides of human life: on miranda's part, her passion for life and discovery, for learning and making a difference; and clegg's, showing his selfishness, rigidness and desire to own or kill everything that shows vibrance and emotion, everything he is not. this was fowles' intention, to show us that we all have both good and evil inside us,that mirnada was not entirely perfect and clegg was not entirely evil, but that the evil in clegg eventually overcame miranda's good. this book is a dire warning to human kind to embrace life and see that we have opportunities outside what we are given, that we always have the option of free thinking.in a way, clegg was more trapped than miranda: her in body, but him in spirit.