A Maggot - John Fowles

Advantages: immersive, expansive, intriguing and excellently written
Disadvantages: perhaps a little lengthy and convoluted if looking for a quick read

...A compulsive, riveting and illuminating novel, brilliantly capturing the confusion along the journey of it's protagonist Nicholas Urfe. John Fowles carefully weaves a tapestry of intrigue centered around Urfe and the mysterious character of Conchis, before shocking both the characters and the readers by turning events and relationships on their heads. Mysticism, religion, philosophy and ideology are combined in the telling of this highly evocative tale. Fowles skill as an author is to create characters that are not likeable, but that garner the readers empathy, sympathy and intrigue, drawing you hooked through the novel, never sure of the ground on which as a reader you stand. Fowles descriptive passages are beautiful, perfectly representing the vision of life on an isolated Greek island, and the history of it's inhabitants... Read review

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Advantages: Well written, unpredictable, thrilling narrative
Disadvantages: Elaborate style might put some off

...I first read this book almost 20 years ago while I was still at college. At the time I knew nothing of the author John Fowles and had never read any of his other books. I picked up my tattered copy from a second hand bookshop in Brighton and from the title I expected some kind of fantasy story, boy was I mistaken! Taking another look at it many years later I wouldn't say this is a book I'd like to re-read far from it I don't think I could re-read 'The Magus' but I wish I could read it again for the first time. If ever the old cliché of a un-put-downable read applied then it applies to this book. I was one of the most surprising reads I ever cam across and it would be nice to recapture that feeling. THE STORY Nicholas Urfe is a young Oxford graduate in the early 50's, he is bored with teaching at a small English public school... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Absorbing, a good psychological thriller
Disadvantages: Quite disturbing and grim.

...I read The Collector for my Advanced Higher English Dissertation in sixth year after a teacher recommended it to me because she thought I was sick enough to maybe get a kick out of it. Well, maybe I didn't get a kick out of it, but it certainly made me feel something. The Collector by John Fowles, is a very absorbing and chilling novel about a man who kidnaps a woman he has been obsessed by for a long time, despite never really being in contact with her. The novel is divided into four chapters told by the two very different characters of Frederick Clegg, the man obsessed and through the diary Miranda Grey keeps whilst being held captive by him. Frederick is a loner,but a "nice" polite man as Miranda describes him in her half of the novel; " He's what you'd call a nice young man." He is uneducated, likes... Read review

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