The Collector John Fowles

Ostensibly a book about a man who kidnaps a young girl he convinces himself he is in love with, within the horror/thriller genre, The Collector also explores themes such as the class struggle in the 1960s, the purpose and importance of art and religion. The book is divided into two narrative voices, the monotonous yet loathsomely self deceiving Frederick Clegg and the journal entries of the girl he kidnaps, Miranda, who writes in a fragmented way, describing her feelings about being kidnapped, transcribing dialogue from conversations and relating her failed romance with an older artist.

It is a difficult book to decide which character you sympathise with, at first it seems obvious that the reader should sympathise entirely with Miranda, but when you read her journal entries she becomes a less sympathetic character in her snobbishness. Syhamal Bagchee (in "The Collector": The Paradoxical Imagination of John Fowles) points out that Miranda’s behaviour causes Frederick to become embittered towards her though her attempts to escape, taunting him about the fact that she sees him as beneath her and assaulting him with an axe, and that this causes him to undergo a personality change which leaves him even more alienated from society and cold towards his next victim.

It’s an extremely readable novel which I finished in about two days, but it’s not a pleasant read because it makes the reader confront some rather unpleasant ideas, and there is a sense that the ending is inevitable. Although Frederick never rapes Miranda, there is a very uncomfortable part where he drugs her and takes photographs of her. There is also a sense that she is almost fond of him at times. I would argue that it is by no means as straightforward as you would expect. 

Anyway, I gave it four stars. 

References

"The Collector": The Paradoxical Imagination of John Fowles

Syhamal Bagchee

Journal of Modern Literature
Vol. 8, No. 2, John Fowles Special Number (1980 - 1981), pp. 219-234
Published by: Indiana University Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3831229

The Banquet of Esther Rosenbaum by Penny Simpson

Despite being a proud Welsh woman who loves Welsh culture, I admit to not being that well-versed in Anglo-Welsh literature. I think this has come from being more interested in reading better known books in my university days and from having a horror of reading dreary tomes about sheep farms in the valleys or depressed copper smelting families. Which is terribly prejudiced of me, I know.  I’m not about to embark on a project to read Anglo-Welsh novels at the moment, but I came across this one in the library and thought I might give it a go, especially as I enjoy reading about the period when it’s set. 

The Banquet of Ether Rosenbaum is about a seven-foot tall Jewish (female) chef living in Germany during the Weimar Republic. It’s an odd book that I found difficult to rush through despite being quite short. It seemed to be more character driven rather than plot driven, and is populated with a variety of colourful characters including Brecht. The characters are well-drawn, but I found it difficult to engage with them and I didn’t find it that much of an emotional read despite the setting. 

I did think it would be a bit more evocative, but that was not entirely the style that she was writing in. As it was a magic realist book, there was an assumption that the reader would be able to place the period and the historical aspects were pared away. The choice of the period was largely dictated in that it needed to be set against a backdrop of political turmoil and war but also a period of creativity and conflict between creative people and fascists. As a magic realist novel it works well, but I would’ve found it disappointing as a historical novel. 

Esther Rosenbaum was a good narrator, and generally I liked the style that the book was written in. Time is played with, body transformation is representative of the state of Germany at the time and Esther makes elaborate symbolic dishes. The food is not described in that much detail. I suppose I have been spoiled by books such as Like Water for Chocolate, but here the descriptions seem skimmed-over. There is a slight sense of an extended short story rather than a novel. 

Perhaps it suffers a little from the dreaded Curse of the Literary Fiction That is Too Literary where it wins prizes but it loses something at the same time through being a bit too experimental or ambitious. Or maybe I just wasn’t concentrating enough on it. I did enjoy it and thought that it was good, but it was more of a three star than a four star and I was quite glad I got it from the library. I think it’ll encourage me to be less prejudiced about Anglo-Welsh novels though.

Swann’s Way - Review

There is a kind of wonderful symmetry about the novel; I would describe it as being like a skilfully woven tapestry in the way that it all links together. I thought it would be useful to look at in a modernist context. I think that had it been written earlier there would have had to have been more of an emphasis on a straightforward narrative ‘autobiography’ style, whereas the book plays around with time, with language, with devices such as the inclusion of dreams and the use of food and drink to prompt memory or sensation. Nothing is fixed, and although there is a structure to it, it is not immediately apparent, unlike the earlier Victorian edifices, all craftsman built out of the solid construction of plot and character, this feels different. The plot is not linear, the characters are not fixed, and loose ends are left loose. Emotion and description are more important than plot.

It can seem as if Swann’s story has little relevance to the story of the narrator, yet it feels as if his story is the story of the narrator. I don’t know how this will be developed further in the novel but there is a feeling that the narrator is doomed to repeat Swann’s mistakes in becoming attracted to the wrong person. Also, Gilberte seems to be following her mother in the way that she seems to toy with the narrator’s affections. The narrator still hasn’t explained what prompted Swann’s unfortunate marriage either.

Frankly, this novel is a pain to read and a pain to write about. No matter what my estimation is as to how long it’s going to take me, I have to triple it then add some. I’ve had large chunks of time where I haven’t felt like picking it up, then large chunks of time where I’ve felt like reading it quite a bit. I do think it’s worth it, though. I can be reading along thinking ‘where the hell’s he going now?’ then suddenly I get an ‘aha’ moment where it all makes sense. I think it may take me two years to get to the end at least, and I may end up reading another BIHNR at the same time (I’m looking forward to reading Hilary Mantel’s books in particular). But it strengthens my concentration, particularly re-reading it on the Kindle when I am writing it up. I have no idea what to rate it as, I suppose I’d go with a four out of five, the one star being lost for sheer difficulty. 

Anyway, onto book two. 

Swann’s Way Part 6 – The novel’s close

Ivan Kramskoy painting, Bois de Boulangne

The final part seemed quite short compared to some of the parts I’ve written about. It’s at this point that I began to truly appreciate Proust’s mastery in the way that he completes the novel bringing everything together. I can see some of the themes and the motifs that he has used more clearly here, particularly how each of the characters play different roles throughout the novel, and how Swann’s experience is reflected by that of the narrator. 

The point of view is returned to the narrator who is a young man, on the cusp of adulthood. He has returned to Paris where he lives with his parents and Francois. Although he is not exactly a perfect specimen of manhood, he seems a little more confident and dreams of travelling away from Combrey. Combrey is an important location in the novel which represents different things, for example, it represents a place of security to Swann, a place where he can go to where he can recover from his relationship with Odette, and to the narrator I think it represents his childhood which he is slowly leaving behind him. 

Part of this is the proposed travel plans. The theme of duality is present here in the way that the narrator separates the way he imagines places from the places themselves, pointing out that they are completely different. He opens the chapter describing a room that he has visited in Balbec sometime in the past, but it is not at the moment he is describing, as he is prevented from travelling by an illness and is forced to confine himself to wandering around the Champs-Elysees with Francoise.

Balbec is associated in his mind with storms. Nature is another reoccurring motif in this chapter, and is associated with sex and with the transition into adulthood. The narrator longs to witness the storms as an example of something real and genuine as opposed to created by man. Legradin further improves if by describing its historical attraction, which the narrator asks Swann about. The imagery of fisherman living as they had always lived and of the Gothic church that Swann describes further sparks his imagination, and he day-dreams about taking the train to see Balbec. 

His desire is replaced when his parent offer to take him to Italy. Whereas Balbec is associated with storms, Italy is associated with sunshine and flowers (particularly lilies), and with architecture. The names take on a significance which is not related to how the places that he later visit really are. However, he is too ill to be able to travel, or to be able to do anything that excites him such as going to the theatre. He can only walk around the Champs-Elysee, a place which he cannot imagine anything about. 

On one of his visits he encounters Gilberte, Swann’s daughter. He immediately begins to obsess over her, and tries to meet her at every opportunity. She is not that attached to him at first, it is like she is an Odette in training in the way that his obsession and her indifference mirrors Swan and Odette’s romance. The narrator is already the type of person to obsess over people (hence his obsession with his mother kissing him in the night), now he transfers it to Gilberte. She meets a mysterious older woman who asks about her mother and sits reading the newspaper watching her grandchildren. The woman re-occurs several times in the narrative.

Gilberte doesn’t tell the narrator that she loves him, much to his despair. In fact, she compares him with other boys and can be cold towards him. He finds that the picture he has in his head of her is different to the way she really is. She buys him a marble the colour of her eyes to remind him of her, as well as an out-of-print pamphlet. He experiences a kind of doubling; there is a sense of multiple Gilbertes representing different things.

The narrator encounters her father, who is no longer friendly with “Marcel’s” parents. Whilst Swann is welcome at Combrey, I think his parents fear that inviting him will lead to his wife joining him, and besides, he has a bad reputation in Paris. He is fascinated by M. Swann, who doesn’t really recognise him (however, the narrator is quite embarrassed by his former behaviour in trying to force his mother to come up to see him).

He convinces himself that Gilberte is going to write a letter to him confessing her love and why she can’t tell him, she has to keep it a secret. Like Swann, he dreams of a woman who can be beside him, helping him with his work. He tries to get his parents to talk about Swann and particularly Gilberte’s friend, the mysterious lady. He has assumed that she is upper class (‘…she must at least me an Ambassador’s widow, if not actually a Highness’ p390) but his mother tells him that’s Mme. Blatin, a widow of a bailiff, and his mother had encountered her at his gymnastic lessons, where she kept bothering his mother. “She is, really, a horrible woman, frightfully vulgar, and besides, she is always creating awkward situations.” (ibid). His parents are unimpressed with his attempts to emulate Swann and lack of interest in anything but Swann, and he also becomes obsessed with Mme. Swann.

He witnesses the effects that her notoriety has on her in the way that she avoids speaking to anyone in the street although many men recognise her. She dresses too expensively, and behaves like she thinks she’s the queen, which draws attention to her. She has different faces for different men. She seems to want to be noticed, but doesn’t want to recognise it. People talk about her. 

His burgeoning sexuality is associated with his spying on Odette in the Bois de Boulogne, which in turn is associated with the jungle and other types of wild foliage such as trees and large red flowers. The trees represent women, hence the narrator’s association with the trees and the dryad. There is also something mysterious and sensual about the trees. He later remembers the park and the splendour of the carriages and the way that people dressed, comparing it unfavourable with the modern dress and motor cars. Like Swann, he longs to share a cup of tea with a sympathetic woman, but the houses that he remembers longing to visit have gone. 

The way that the novel concludes is perfect in its symmetry as the older narrator remembers how his younger self obsessed over Odette/Gilberte (I think that these two characters are doubled, as is the young narrator and Swann).

Swann’s Way Part 5 – Another unfortunate party

So, I left off with Swann still obsessing over Odette despite the Verdurins best efforts to separate them. She’s busy not only completely taking him for granted but also having affairs with other men. Swann stops meeting her at the Verdurin’s, now that the first flush of love is over he remembers that he hates them to the point of comparing their parties to the Dante’s last circle of hell. In return, Mme Verdurin thinks he’s ‘”too deadly for words, a stupid, ill-bred boor”’.  

He gets angry with her for having no taste and for lying to him. She puts on weight and grows less attractive but he loves her even more. She begins to go off on some little trips with the Verdurins where they try to persuade her to stay overnight and she refuses to send any messages to Swann, evidently attempting to stop him stalking her. Swann can only just resist from following her, fearing that she will be angry about it, whereas she doesn’t think of him at all. He has a kind of a crisis about it and worries that everything she says is a lie. He hires a private investigator to look into someone he considers a rival, but he only discovers her dead uncle.

Proust returns to the motif of the senses provoking emotion, Odette is making orangeade which causes him to lose his suspicions of her (p289), it’s as if he can only trust her when he is in her presence, shortly after they are separated he begins to torture himself imagining her being with Forcheville. He loves her, but hates her at the same time. She is like a morphine addiction or consumption, just as Swann thinks he is breaking the habit or being cured he succumbs again (p298). 

Swann asks his friend Adolphe to intercede on his behalf, and it is here we see how cleverly Proust has tied the novel together, as Adolphe is the narrator’s great uncle Adolphe and the narrator has already encountered Odette as his mistress. Adolphe is not that helpful and Odette tells Swann later on that he tried to rape her. Adolphe certainly has come off quite badly so far in the novel, I am not sure here whether Odette is telling the truth or not, she does have motivation to manipulate, lie and generally prevent Swann from finding out what’s going on. He finds out that she has led a ‘gay’ life in Nice (prostitution) and worries that she might have done it out of a ‘capricious instinct’ which will led her into it again. He is not worried about her reputation. She is extremely mysterious about what she does when she is away from him. She is quite dismissive towards him, with little respect and it’s quite tragic how obsessed he is still with her.

He is persuaded by the Baron de Charlus to attend a horrible society party given by the Marquise de Saint-Euverte. He does not intend to go to the musical evening, but Charlus convinces him that it will not be as boring as he expects and he wants Charlus to intercede with Odette on his behalf. 

Although the narrator can be quite snobbish at times, Swann is not affected by mixing with people of different classes. Proust has an unerring eye for the foibles of society and wonderfully describes how the contemptuous sneering footmen treat his hat like it is some sort of holy relic whilst treating him as if he’s nothing. Some of the guests are portrayed as being ugly and deformed, and not many of them are all that upper-class. The Marquise de Gallardon claims kinship with the Guermantes family and basks in underserved reflected glory, name-dropping at every occasion. But the Princesse de Laumes, her young cousin, doesn’t recognise her or invite her anywhere so she deceives herself that she doesn’t want to be invited in case she meets the Princesse Mathilde there. However, in this case the cousin turns up. The Princesse de Laumes behaves in a really snobbish but also awkward way. She arrives ‘with her arms pressed close to her sides, even where there was no crowd to be squeezed through, no one attempting to get past her; staying purposely at the back with the air of being in her proper place, like a kind who stands in the waiting procession at the doors of a theatre where the management have been warned of his coming;’ (p318). She is so far back she can’t see properly, and refuses to pretend that she likes the music in a really obvious way like the woman next to her, and then starts to feel really unsure of herself like she should pretend. The music is a little old-fashioned anyway, and some of the audience feel bad for enjoying it (including de Laumes). 

Gallardon rushes towards de Laumes, simultaneously attempting to remain unfriendly and distant towards her whilst inviting her over. De Laumes doesn’t ‘do’ society or going out, however, so turns her down. Gallardon is rude and anti-Semitic towards Swann, but de Laumes is friends with Swann so shuts up Gallardon by pointing out that Swann has never turned up to her house despite the social climber inviting him numerous times.

I think this is a reminder to the reader that Swann is still considered to be an outsider by certain members of society, and has always been considered an outsider. He hasn’t really cared about the opinions of society, hence his affairs with women. This doesn’t matter that much to the highest echelons of society that he moves in, de Laumes still considers herself a friend of his, but it does matter to the social climbers who are secretly unsure of their own position in society. So far, the narrator has confined himself mainly to the social climbers, the awfulness of society parties is perfectly captured, along with the humour inherent in the characters that attend. 

There is a sense that the narrator is being rather snobbish towards them, but this is tempered by the way that De Laumes is not spared either, along with her awkward way in society she has a rather unfortunate marriage to her cousin, who has been continually unfaithful to her since she married him. 

Mme de Cambremer is admired, despite almost interrupting the piano recital. I have a feeling that she might be an important character later on by the way that the narrator ensures that she is continually mentioned, even though she doesn’t have that big a role in the party itself. Des Laumes doesn’t seem to have anything that good to say about her, however, nor about the Iénas, her husband’s friends, who have some old-fashioned furniture. She seems to be lashing out a little because her husband is probably having an affair with the Princesse d’Iéna, but the guests dismiss what she says as ‘the wit of the Guermantes’ (p325).

Swann is very fond of de Laumes, partly because she reminds him of Guermantes, which is close to Combrey. He is a little flirtatious to her, but I think it’s more in a friendly, gallant way than anything else. She finds him witty and finds his compliments amusing. She asks him about Mme de Cambremer, Swann tells her that she was a Legradin who originally came from Combrey. Although they don’t talk of Odette, he feels comforted by her anyway. 

The music also reminds him of Odette and provokes memories of happier times; sights, smells and sensations. The overwhelming feelings cause him to realise that he has no hope with her: ‘…Swann could distinguish, standing, motionless, before that scene of happiness in which it lived again, a wretched figure which filled him with such pity, because he did not at first recognise who it was, that he must lower his head, lest anyone should observe that his eyes were filled with tears. It was himself.’ (p338). Vinteuil’s sonata marks the beginning of his romance and the end. 

Whenever she is kind to him, instead of seeing it as a sign of a renewed affection he compares it to the kind of sensation a person feels who is nursing a friend suffering from a terminal illness and the friend has a kind of temporary relapse, although the person still realises that the friend is still going to die. He does not have the courage to end it himself. 

He dreams of going away on a train, leaving behind a young man on the platform whom he is trying to convince to go away with him. The young man reoccurs later in the narrative, where it is revealed that he is an aspect of Swann himself. Here, he represents the part of Swann who is happily in love with Odette, a part which Swann is trying to hold on to but has to reluctantly leave behind.  His relationship with her is a kind of gender reversal in that although he started off being the one who had all the power, his obsession with her somewhat emasculates him. She ends up with all the power, he submits to her and tries to get his friends to ‘put in a good word’ with her (which doesn’t work anyway). 

She plans to leave for Egypt with Forcheville, he is afraid to question her about whether she is his mistress in case she becomes angry. He also receives a letter anonymously saying that she had been the mistress of a number of men, including Forcheville, a number of women, and that she frequents ‘houses of ill-fame’. He is not that upset by the contents of the letter, just upset that someone who evidently knows him quite well would write an anonymous letter to him. It causes him to suspect all his close friends, including servants and the narrator’s grandfather, but doesn’t believe the letter.

He does, however, start to question Odette’s relationship with Mme. Verdurin, and he suspects that they had a lesbian affair. He questions her, but she denies it, eventually admitting that she is lying and she did have a relationship with a woman, something which he considers ‘evil’ (p345) and compares to some sort of disease he needs to prevent. He still loves her: ‘this Odette, from whom all this evil sprang, was no less dear to him, was, on the contrary, more precious, as if, in proportion as his sufferings increased at the same time the price of the sedative, of the antidote which this woman alone possessed.’ She tries to dismiss it, but he realises that she could’ve been lying all along. He goes to brothels to try to find out something about her.

She goes off on a cruise with the Verdurins which takes far longer than expected; meanwhile, Swann starts to extricate himself from her. However, he meets Mme Cottard who tells him that Odette was always talking about him on the cruise. Mme Cottard seems to try to re-awake his feelings of love for her, but he has decided not to see her again. 

A few weeks later he dreams of walking along the coast at twilight with Mme Verdurin, Dr. Cottard, a young man in a Fez, the painter, Odette, Napoleon III and the narrator’s grandfather (p360). He can feel the spray from the waves on his face and Odette tells him to wipe it off, but he feels ‘confused and helpless’ by her presence and is wearing his nightshirt. Mme Verdurin grows a bigger nose and a moustache; Odette loves him so much she is on the verge of tears but looks at her watch and decides she must go. He is unable to follow and feels that he hates her. They part and the painter tells him that Napoleon III has gone after Odette, which makes the young man cry. Dream Swann comforts him and he realises that the man in the fez is himself. Napoleon III is Forcheville. He has a vision of destruction, hearing the thunder of waves and the beating of his own heart, feeling sick and in pain, then encounters a ‘dreadfully burned peasant’ (p362) who tells him to ask Charlus about Odette and her friend who started the fire, then he wakes up.

Eric C. Hicks (‘Swann’s Dream and the World of Sleep’, Yale French Studies No. 34, Proust (1965), pp. 106-116) analyses Swann’s dream, linking the word éclaboussure meaning to ‘splatter’ (which Proust has used to describe the freezing spray) but also related to someone’s name being smeared and ‘to flaunt one’s magnificence (or wealth) in another’s face’. This is linked to Swann’s disgrace, along with Mme. Verdurin’s transformation linked to her reaction to something Forcheville has said about Swann and her general hostility to Swann (I also interpreted this as Swann’s subconscious reaction to discovering that Odette and Mme. Verdurin had had an affair, he feels emasculated). Mme Verdurin also prevents Swann from challenging Odette and her leaving followed by Napoleon III is reminiscent of her leaving in Forcheville’s carriage (Napoleon III was a notorious womanizer). As the man in the fez is a representation of a previous incarnation of Swann (Swann who loves Odette and is probably going to go with her to Egypt), the Odette who is about to cry and whom dream Swann feels he wants to carry off with him, is the previous incarnation of Odette who was trying to get Swann to love her (Swann notes that she looks sad when she tries to attract other lovers). Duality is a reoccurring motif throughout the dream, with the duality of Swann, Odette and Napoleon and Swann’s sensation that he can reproduce himself, as is binary opposition - light/dark, low/high, love/hate, up/down, and disorientating sensations such as the feeling of holding a strange hand and of being able to hear his own heart beating. I think the horribly burned peasant represents the destructiveness of Odette and Forcheville’s affair, Hicks’s theory is that the peasant is yet another part of past Swann.

Swann decides to go to Combrey to see Mme de Cambremer. He realises that he has misrepresented her to himself and wasted time and agony on her. His love for her is over.