The Collector

Critics

• Pop Art

  This is a fashionably contrived novel (first person accounts from two different points of view) with a durably titillating subject (beauty imprisoned by beast), fortified with well-dropped OK names. It is not compelling reading, as they say—I would w ... (read full critics)

  nybooks published on Sat, 21 Aug 2010

4 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  符傲思--蝴蝶春夢

  It's one of the most startling and disturbing books I've ever read. My first encounter with Fowls happened when I tried to read "The Magus", but I failed to comprehend the complicated novel. "The Collector" is so well-known that I finally decided to give myself a second chance in approaching the leg ... (continue)

  It's one of the most startling and disturbing books I've ever read. My first encounter with Fowls happened when I tried to read "The Magus", but I failed to comprehend the complicated novel. "The Collector" is so well-known that I finally decided to give myself a second chance in approaching the legendary John Fowls.
  The novel is divided into three parts. Both the kidnapper and his beautiful victim have their monologues. Then the perpetrator has his final defense of his crime, which is the most terrifying climax. Created by Fowls, Frederick, or the Caliban, the paranoid psycho, has become the most bone-chilling, merciless yet deadly-attractive character one can ever meet in fictions.

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  竹。 said on Apr 10, 2007 about the Paperback edition | 1 feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  What intrigue me most is not the relationship between the kidnapper and the girl but the relationship between the girl and her "mentor" GP and what GP and some of the quotes she remember from him. Well that also because it reflected some of what's been happening in my real life

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  Judy Mama said on Nov 6, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Best quotes

  The ordinary man is the curse of civilization.
  But he'so ordinary that he's extraordinary.

  I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being ali ... (continue)

  The ordinary man is the curse of civilization.
  But he'so ordinary that he's extraordinary.

  I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive, but it's the dead me he wants.

  It's him. And it's this weird male thing. Now I'm no longer nice. They sulk if you don't give, and hate you when you do. Intelligent men must despise themselves for being like that. Their illogicality. Sour men and wounded women.

  I could never cure him. Because I'm his disease.

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  Dema said on Dec 27, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  A rather disturbing psychological thriller.

  I didn't particularly care for the structure of the book. The first section is a first person narrative by Frederick Clegg, butterfly (and girl) collector. The second section is a set of diary entries by Miranda, collected girl and artist. The third ... (continue)

  A rather disturbing psychological thriller.

  I didn't particularly care for the structure of the book. The first section is a first person narrative by Frederick Clegg, butterfly (and girl) collector. The second section is a set of diary entries by Miranda, collected girl and artist. The third section returns to Clegg. I would have liked the novel better if I could have skipped over Miranda's section entirely. (But that might be because I despised Miranda.) Clegg is the fascinating character of the two, so I wish Fowles would have focused entirely on him.

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  Hold Your Spin said on Nov 26, 2006 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (57)
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• English Books
• Softcover 255 Pages
• Publisher: New Dell
• Pub date: Jan 01, 1975
• Also available as: Paperback, Hardcover, Audio Cassette, Others and eBook

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