The Collector

An anti-social (and sexually impotent) man named Frederick Clegg who has no friends and collects butterflies becomes obsessed with an attractive young 20-year-old art student named Miranda. He has fantasies about kidnapping her, making her fall in love with him. One day, he wins the pools and suddenly has the money to make his fantasies come to life. Step by step he finds himself buying a van, a house in the countryside where he can keep her, but all the while he doesn't really believe it will ever come to anything beyond meaningless fantasies. Then, as if on auto-pilot, he actually does it.

Miranda is kept in a basement where Fred takes care of her every need, buying her nice clothes, perfumes, her favourite food, whatever she wants. He provides her with records, books, and the materials she needs for her art (including a drawing pad). At first she is understandably belligerent, refusing to speak, refusing to eat. Then she adapts her technique to better her chances of escape, almost befriending him, wanting to get to know him. Finally, she succumbs to the inevitable and offers herself to him sexually, only to find that he is appalled by this. Nothing she does seems to get through to him.

The book reminded me a lot of The Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato. But while that book only gives us the man's perspective, this one gives us both. Part one is narrated by Fred, we see things from his point of view, see Miranda as he does, a kind of precious item placed on a pedestal. But then, in part two, we are given access to the diary Miranda has been writing during her captivity, and we not only get her perspective but we suddenly get a human being, one that is complex and flawed; she is no longer just that beautiful creature he is obsessed with but a person, with thoughts, ideas, and loves of her own (including an older man she is seemingly in love with referred to as G.P throughout the novel). Fowles isn't even afraid of making her a little unlikeable, because, in truth, all fully formed human beings are. The point is, she is more than just the idealised fantasy that Fred wants her to be.

Given that this was published in 1963, I was amazed at how modern it feels. Fred is very much what we would call an incel today, low on confidence, self-pitying, while Miranda is opinionated, sure of herself, intellectually dominant. It was such a fantastic book to read, so easy to get lost in the stark prose, so nuanced in its portrayal of a madman and his victim who refuses to be a victim. And the ending has a sting.