The Collector

It starts off so well, as far as psychotics go. Frederick Clegg sees himself as a connoisseur but is awkward and isolated even amongst his peers at his “Bug Meetings”. He's a collector of beautiful butterflies. But then he finds himself obsessed with the 20-something Miranda and having recently won the lotto finds himself with the means to take his obsession further. What happens next, he claims, is not his fault.

It is a supremely tense first act told from his perspective. It's a perfectly taut cat and mouse game between him and Miranda where anything could happen. Fowles does an amazing job at putting us in the mind of Frederick and we can see how he so easily justifies his actions and sees himself as an innocent. Truly anything can happen.

For me it fell apart when we switched to Miranda's narration. It felt vapid and empty rambling on about art and her naive obsession with the older G.P which felt as delusional as Frederick's obsession with her. Perhaps Fowles is drawing parallels here but her narration felt like a misstep. Still an enjoying read.