The novel focuses on two individuals, Frederick Clegg, a lonely, uneducated office clerk who collects butterflies, and a beautiful, upper class art student Miranda Grey, who Frederick very calmly abducts and locks in his cellar.
The novel is written from two perspectives, first Frederick Clegg’s. The impression of Clegg is both fascinating and disturbing from the start. He’s a socially awkward man who has no concept or understanding of the social and moral rules of the world he lives in, and has little imagination or understanding of himself. He sees himself as a gentleman (despite being uneducated and from the working class) and old fashioned; he despises anything improper, or crude in other people. His version of events makes the whole situation seem very spontaneous and entirely unpremeditated, despite the obvious effort and planning: he buy’s a cottage and transforms the cellar into her prison. The attention to detail is superb and also unnerving, and Fowles must be commended for this. And what I found to be one of his most eerie qualities is his calmness, which could also be called his emotional retardation. It’s a long time into the book before he finally looses his temper with Miranda who attempts to escape multiple times, injuring him in the process, and is deliberately cruel to him.
The second part is written from Miranda’s perspective through a journal she kept during her captivity, hidden under her mattress. Her fear and frustration as she tries to understand her captor and gain her freedom are all too palpable. And although she’s a rather snobbish, self-important girl, who seems all too pleased with herself and her ability, you feel for her. I found myself constantly hoping for her escape, and when I wasn’t reading the book it would play on my mind how she might escape, will she escape, what will happen if she doesn’t? You’d worry that the chilling, emotionally twisted narrative of Clegg's and the shrill, emotionally loaded narrative of Miranda’s would be in danger of becoming stiff and predictable, if Fowles didn't write that gorgeous prose that makes you want to drop to one knee half of the time.
There have been many highly publicized cases of men holding women hostage in recent years, and this particular scenario has been covered in literature and film quite a bit. However, what distinguishes this particular novel from the rest is the fact that a great deal of attention is paid to the nuances of interpersonal reactions and the psychological states of mind of the two protagonists. Having gone so deeply into the thought processes we may find ourselves relating far more than we would like to too Clegg and his motives for kidnapping Miranda. Fowles also takes us deep into Miranda’s mind, and we see with mild horror that as time passes, she feels sympathy and a connection of some kind to Clegg: “And yes, he had more dignity than I did then and I felt small, mean. Always sneering at him, jabbing him, hating him and showing it. It was funny, we sat in silence facing each other and I had a feeling I’ve had once or twice before, of the most peculiar closeness to him”
There are other ways in which Miranda and Clegg are linked. A lot of her entries focus on her relationship with a much older man, G.P. To begin with these anecdotes she writes seem really rather odd and you wonder why there’s so much emphasis on them, but it soon becomes clear that Clegg’s obsession with Miranda is mirrored through her obsession with G.P. and his “rules” to do with how one should live life and how one should be an artist.
One point, which I hesitate to put forward as a negative, but would not say is wholly positive, is that to me the life and art philosophy that Miranda talks about seem really rather dated, very 60s (not that I claim to know a lot about the evolution of artistic perspective, but I would argue it's dated). I said it was not wholly negative because it does give a clearer picture of the culture of the 60s, and only serves to distance Miranda and Clegg further as he cannot perceive these intangible, creative, human ideas.
The Collector is sometimes referred to as the first psychological thriller, which is debatable, but it turned out to be such a full blown, picture perfect example of a psychological thriller, that it's hard not to consider everything that came before like proto-thrillers. Fowles is inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and Joseph Conrad, but he doesn't just turn it up a notch; The Collector was something completely new for its time and it influenced a lot of literature of the late twentieth century.
Fowles' novel is a satisfying blend of page-turning thriller and intelligent psychological study and although you may not ‘like’ either of the protagonists, I can guarantee you will never forget them.
Afternote:
The Collector is Fowles first novel, and I would recommend that anyone who reads this and enjoys it to also read his book ‘The Magus’. And I apologise for the chop-change style of my review! But there’s so much to say about this book and I only finished it yesterday, and I’d be lying if I didn’t think it was something that’s emotionally challenging and instigates quite a bit of self-reflecting… so it’s hard to divide the emotional response from the critical. I only hope I’ve done it enough justice!
Also, here are two articles I found very useful in terms of understanding exactly what Fowles was trying to achieve:
- Nodelman, P. (1987). “John Fowles’ Variations in ‘The Collector’”. Contemporary Literature, 28(3), pp. 332-346, p. 339
- Campbell, J. (1976), “An Interview with John Fowles”. Contemporary Literature, 17(4), pp. 455-469, p. 457
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