The Collector

"I know what I am to him. A butterfly he has always wanted to catch." 

With the onslaught of formulaic TV crime procedurals these days, I had to read this book with a different frame of mind. I even had to expel a bit of what I remember about the (excellent) 1965 William Wyler-directed film, starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, because as much as the film is chilling and influenced future twisted thrillers (here's looking at you, Silence of the Lambs and Misery...) it only peeled back just a few of the layers John Fowles' cleverly constructed in the pages of his debut novel. 

The Collector is a psychological suspense thriller, and depending on your opinion, the first of its kind. It involves a butterfly collecting sociopath who after winning the football pools decides to put his winnings into remodeling a countryside manor so he can kidnap and 'collect' a young woman he's been obsessed with. Since such a storyline is blurred between fiction and fact these days, The Collector by summary feels a tad less compelling, but even when I knew every turn I still managed to feel unsettled, engaged, and even conflicted while reading. There was something so stirringly captivating about Fowles pitting these two characters in this disturbing power struggle, becoming audience to how they both perceive their situation, and how complex it all was.

For the first part, you go inside the warped mind of Fredrick Clegg as he stalks and then prepares to kidnap the object of his obsession, a young art student named Miranda Grey. From Fredrick's perspective, you view Miranda as a difficulty, and you oddly start to victim blame, because well, Fredrick comes off being oh so "nice". He's fixing fancy meals, he's bought Miranda everything her heart's desire, and he's made a nice comfortable spot for her in a cellar surrounded by books and painting tools. He even states he only wants her as his "guest". The internal dialogue has you almost sympathizing with Fredrick (yeah, gross I know), as he comes off as this lonely and socially awkward guy who is looking for a friend, and just goes about it in the most ineptest way imaginable.

But the record scratch of reality comes in the middle as the narrative switches gears and we become privy of Miranda's thoughts through a secret diary she keeps between the mattress. At first this transition was jarring, and since she recounts most of everything you have read for the last 100 pages it all seems like a bad literary decision, but it's not, in fact it's a brilliant turn of character building. Miranda is now not bound and gagged by her captor, she is 'free' to speak her mind in her secret diary and we begin to understand the claustrophobic nightmare she is desperately trying to claw out of. From these pages, we learn that Miranda is quite intelligent and resourceful as she tries to figure out ways to best Fredrick, submitting to and resisting him all for the sake of survival. It's devastating to read how she slowly realizes just how insane Fredrick is and how day-by-day she becomes less of a human in his eyes, but more of an inanimate object that is only to be admired, likened to his framed butterflies. 

"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. He wants me living-but-dead."  

What makes this such a compelling read is the symbolism these two represent. While watching the film, I never noticed Fredrick and Miranda representing this tug of war of a changing time era, where social hierarchy was soon to be put under a microscope by select movements (civil rights and feminism for starts) and political unrest. The film plays it more literal, we're only supposed to focus on Miranda's fear, and root for her escape whilst engaging in this depraved courtship. In the book these concepts became clearer to me, and creeped me out even further.

For me there was a clear gender power play going on. When Fowles wrote this book the second wave of the feminism movement was mobilizing and cultivating what would become the "new modern woman". Miranda represents such a personage as she is college-educated, cultured, and has personal life goals in mind. Standing in for the patriarchy or the "status quo" is Fredrick, he wants to put Miranda in her place, to control her and foist a perceived identity for her who abides by his rules, never her own. Miranda, though, is not to be marginalized and defined by what a man claims she is, and her resistance to this frustrates Fredrick, especially in a moment when Miranda attempts to seduce him, believing that if she shares herself with him, he'll release her. Instead such an act seals her fate as Fredrick shows revulsion towards her. 

"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." 

To him, Miranda is not "pure" anymore or the grand fantasy he has concocted in his sullied mind. Miranda is a real person, with real agency, thus Fredrick can't "love" her in that way, she's too realized for him. When Miranda does gain this bit of herself, even in her conflictions about Fredrick (she too garners sympathy for him at times), Fredrick loses the upper hand, and he feels betrayed and emasculated. 

"We're so weak physically, so helpless with things. Still, even today. But we're stronger than they are. We can stand their cruelty. They can't stand ours."

Talk about hitting it on the nail. *waves church fan* 

Aside from the gender disparities, Fowles frames his novel to represent the then current changes of the British classes, with friction between the working-class and upper-class. Miranda attempt to analyze/rationalize her situation comes a bit to the fore when she waxes in her diary about the "new people vs. the few", coming to a theory about how "new people" (aka "new money") have created a type of cultural chasm in the pursuit of wanting to be like "the few" (aka "old money"), this once they obtain wealth of a certain caliber. She makes some valid points about how "new money" individuals lack in valuing culture, and are more about obtaining things for the sake of obtaining. How they may posses an expensive painting, but do they know or care about the artist? Can they interpret the piece? Do they even like the painting? Same goes for a car, a house, clothing items, electronics...to possess them is one thing, but appreciation of them and noting their value is another set of standards. 

To her Fredrick represents the "new moneyed" working class, as opposed to her bourgeois lifestyle. With all his newfound wealth, throwing money into a new spacious home in an idyllic setting is less about appreciating  home ownership and the nature surrounding, but more about having a place to collect/possess Miranda without a sole around, and even still, when he has obtained Miranda he doesn't value her. 

"He can't have any normal pleasure from me. His pleasure is keeping me prisoner. Thinking of all the other men who would envy him if they knew. Having me." 

During their conversations together, Fredrick doesn't even want to understand Miranda. It's easy to possess, but to truly think and understand, learn and love a person, that is too difficult for people like Fredrick to grasp. This type of backwards thinking became more and more prevalent after The Collector was published, and has in a sense put our current society in a superficial vice. It's why Fowles assertions are quite prophetic, where now possession and its evil twin 'status' has made us indifferent to actual human feeling, of seeing people as people. We don't see the beauty in its natural state anymore, we don't value it, unless we're evaluating the price tag sticking to it, or the Instagram filter we alter it with.

It's why it's darkly hilarious when Miranda tells Fredrick to read The Catcher In The Rye, and Fredrick returns it to her in disgust, as not only does he see himself in character Holden Caulfield and doesn’t like the mirror face staring back at him, but he doesn't even make effort to consider what was written. I'm reminded of what Julia Roberts' character says in the 2003 film, Mona Lisa Smile: "you don’t have to like the artwork, just consider it". Fredrick never considers a damn thing, his indifference to any and all things makes him the callous clod he is. While this classicism discussion may appear to excuse Fredrick's despicable behavior or feels slightly elitist (as some of the richest people I know have zilch in the taste or empathy department...), I still found it an interesting viewpoint how Fowles showed the irresponsibility of wealth of someone coming into "new money", and the reckless, frivolous attitude that is attached to it.

The Collector isn't the easiest of reads, hidden themes be damned. You are disturbed and disgusted by Fredrick's actions (esp. in the book's frightening final chapters), and want to take continuous warm baths like Miranda constantly requests --- and like her you never feel clean. I did quickly read through Miranda's portions for that reason, and more so because I was reminded of a time when I myself was threatened by a young man.

To not go into deep details about my ordeal, I will say I was stalked and coerced by this individual for two years, and it led me to distrust people and even myself in a way I never had before. Reading Miranda's diary portions brought back some of the same anguish, fear, and confusion I had at that time. I got her building mania as she questioned herself, felt her femininity a burden, had conflicted feelings about God, and attempted to diagnose Fredrick's mindset, to find anything rational (out of the irrational) that would lead her to an answer as to why she ended up in the situation she was in. While thankfully I was never held captive in some dingy dungeon, my mentality was held so. I received excessive phone calls, threats, he'd watch me from his car, and at one point he dated a so-called friend of mines just to get closer to me. He too wanted to 'posses' me in some fashion, but he never got to, because like Fredrick the closer he got to me the more he had to see me as an individual, and that turned him off.

As said, this book is more than meets its synopsis, unfortunately Fowles crafted something that has become misunderstood over time, as its shadowy legacy has not only influenced a swath of crime and thriller tomes and films, but even real-life serial killers and rapists. It can be argued The Collector began the "serial killer origin story" or predates Internet "incel culture", as aside from pulp and Noir genres, and Robert Bloch's 1959 sensation Psycho, in 1963 not many literary novels explored the mindsets of would-be murderers with such detailed, metaphorical diagnostics. Truman Capote hadn't even turned the crime drama on its head with how he dissected the killer mind in In Cold Blood yet. The Collector beats it by a couple of years while following a story more about the "birth" of a disturbed serial killer, not the tracking or prevention of one in the aftermath. 

Wyler's taunt technicolor rendering and Maurice Jarre's striking score meld for an unsettling contrast to what unfurls, following Fowles adaptation faithfully and without sacrificing the eeriness of the situation. Some wish this film went with its initial choice to be shot in black-and-white, but I find the stark colors make for a jarring view. This especially when we see Stamp's cold, piercing blue eyes stare down Eggar (side note: seriously, Stamp gives a sinister multi-faceted performance that is just fantastic and a personal favorite of mine. I find him more threatening here than as General Zod in Superman II.) Letting the film be too shrouded in saturated darkness would've given things away, as the normalcy, a vibrant color palette, distorts the reality. 

I do find it odd how film producers not only pushed for Wyler to shoot a happier ending, but gave this film a tagline that read: "almost a love story". Odder still that even with Wyler refusing to comply to studio wishes (he honored Fowles dark ending, thank goodness) and Stamp's dark performance that screams: incel alert, several comments/reviews I've come across of the film do not find fault in Fredrick's actions at all. They feel he was "desperate" and "lonely". That all he wanted was to love something and be loved, and didn't "mean" to harm Miranda. 

Que?

Eh, Fredrick and Miranda are not #couplegoals or even almost #couplegoals. Scenes in the film of the two of them sharing a dinner and smiling across candlelight is not Miranda 'falling in love' in with Fredrick, but of a woman trying to appease her captor so he'd let her go. Seeing how there is a need to romanticize/martyrize serial killers or downplay sexual predators these days, it doesn't surprise me how the interpretation of Fredrick is, but it truly baffles...disturbs me how people can't see that a country home can be a debilitating prison, that the real monster didn't emerge from the swamp, but is a proper gentleman with a beautiful butterfly collection.

A primer for serial killers and incels? An exploration of an extremely toxic relationship? Or a metaphor for classicism? Whatever the take and contradictions, The Collector is a complex, riveting, and misunderstood classic. Not only did it froth up haunted parts of my past, but also bottles up every concept I've know about psychological thrillers, gender power struggles, and class divisions and views them anew, without limiting the horror of it all.

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This review was previously published July 10, 2017. It was edited for spelling and syntax errors, with some additional text and changes.

*Screencaps courtesy of Media Life Crisis