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Book review the collector john fowles free download.Verbal Struggle for Power in “The Collector” by John Fowles – Journalistic Review
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. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Popular Books Page Views. Related Books Reads.
Fiction , Classics , Horror , Thriller ,. John Fowles is an immensely popular and one of the most significant of living English writers. His strong power of imagination and an extraordinary gift of writing make him a novelist worth admiration. He was capable of writing a novel in 18 days and the drafts for The Collector and The Ebony Tower took him less than one month each.
However, he tends to concentrate on certain themes, which become his obsessions, especially imprisonment and liberation and seduction and betrayal. His work remains distinguished by its attention to such ideas as existentialism, the conflict between the sexes and the relationship of man to nature.
He also strongly believes in the autonomy of the individual, especially the creative artist. John Fowles was born in in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex. He recalls the English suburban culture of the s as oppressively conformist and his family as conventional. Therefore he is widely criticized for his attitude towards his family, as they tried hard to create him good conditions for a happy childhood.
And he seemed to be a happy child as at the time he fitted comfortably into the system and rose to become Head Boy. When he was charged with this task, he allowed himself to exercise tyranny over the younger boys. You had total power over other boys; you were totally responsible for discipline and punishment.
I suppose I used to beat on average three or four boys a day. Very evil, I think. Terrible system. There he met Elizabeth Whitton, who proved to be a strong, sensitive critic of his fiction and the inspiration for nearly all his heroines.
Between and he wrote several novels. However, it was only in that he submitted his first novel, The Collector, to the publisher. It appeared in spring and was an immediate best-seller. As a result, he could devote all his time to writing and give up his teaching posts. The inspiration to write The Collector came from the boyish fantasy of Fowles, who frequently imagined the imprisoning of a woman and exerting power over her. The Collector is a story of Frederick Clegg, a self-pitying, mean-minded council worker, who has sentimental and sadistic daydreams about Miranda Grey -a beautiful and talented art student.
His dreams come true when he wins a fortune on the football pools and proceeds to kidnap the object of his desire. She wants to do it by all means, no matter what the consequences might be. She is a determined and well-educated person, who can utter all her feelings and thoughts. For Clegg it is much more difficult to express his will and demands through speech at the same time being firm and not rude for Miranda. Throughout the entire book this verbal struggle for power is very much visible.
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.
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