The Collector

A dark and truly frightening book — not because of an oppressive atmosphere or any bloody events, but because of the protagonist’s actions, his cold-blooded feelings, and what we ultimately understand from them.

A lot of people discuss what this book is really about, and the most popular interpretations are freedom, power and obsession, moral degradation, and even social class systems. But what everyone seems to be missing is that The Collector literally repeats a story that dates back to 1553 — and maybe even further. The story of Beauty and the Beast.

At first I was thinking about this book as a story about a psychopath devoid of any human emotion, whose actions are based on some twisted logic incomprehensible to normal people — which is what makes it so scary. But after thinking about it a little longer, I realised two things: first, he’s most likely not a psychopath but an average man, and second, this is a “modern” Beauty and the Beast — a story about a monster (a man) who traps a beautiful young woman in his home and tries to force her to love him, but with realistic details and a realistic ending. The woman didn’t come to him to protect her family, and she doesn’t fall in love with him. She dies.

What’s interesting is that the author made his protagonist sexually impotent and non-aggressive. He didn’t kidnap her with the intention to hurt her — and he never physically did (he was still a kidnapper and a murderer, of course). He even prepared a comfortable place for her with everything she could enjoy: books about art, beautiful furniture, dresses, paintings. But why? Most probably because it’s easier to identify a monster when it acts like one. It gets much harder when it looks and acts like just an average person. A little weird, maybe, but quiet and harmless — or so we think.

Some things in this book are almost screaming in our faces that it’s really about men and women — like the quote I added below. Men do this because they physically can. That’s also why beauty standards try to convince us that the perfect female body is a skinny one, and why so many men shame and bully women for having muscles — because unconsciously they understand that if we became physically equal, we’d become “the power”and actually be able to fight back.

Men want to trap us in their cozy places with fancy dresses, beautiful furniture and everything we need — just so we forget our past lives (who we can be and what we can become), and love them (patriarchal society) instead. To live eyes wide shut. To not want, ask or expect more. To stay as average as most of them are. And if we don’t agree — well, it’s our fault:

“Then I thought it was her fault, she asked for everything she got.”

In the end they blame us for the things they do, think and say, get rid of us, and move on to a new victim. And the cycle continues. Patriarchy and its loyal servants never sleep.