I work as a freelance programmer and this choice of work lifestyle has made me bound to my home for most part of the day. As I work from home, most of my interactions are limited to wire and online. I go days without human contact which has its own effects. I make conscious effort to interact with outside world by having a life outside - yoga, library, volunteering tutoring and so forth. It has always come as a surprise to me when I hear or read about people who have consciously constructed a world, an island really, where they lead a hermit life. I find that too much of space can be claustrophobic in the way it stifles inherent nature of man to be social (and live in group). 
 Fowles takes this primal instinct and provides a very spectacular mess. Frederick Clegg kidnaps Miranda Grey due to his obsession of her. From basic attraction to obsession to stalking to kidnapping, Clegg operates on a detachment from reality. Miranda is almost equal to the butterflies he collects as a hobby. They are both pinned by his adoration and his obsession. Fowles gives a combination of detached and passionate voice to Clegg. The rules by which he sees the world are clear to him, scary to Miranda and chilling to the readers. The continuous dialogue between Miranda and Clegg makes the entirety of this book. 
 Clegg is a wonderful study in disappointment. While his colored view of the world (and Miranda) starts to dissolve, Miranda grows as a person, as a woman and tries to understand her captor so that she can one day bargain for her freedom. With each passing day she learns a little and gives Clegg an myriad of impressions of her. Clegg's steady obsession unnerves her stance and her resolution making her snap and retaliate. 
 In a very muted game of psychological cat and mouse chase that's confined to a small physical space, Fowles forces the reader to question their own bias, their sexual gratifications and the notion of passion. Clegg and Miranda are unwrapped slowly, their interactions giving away a bit of themselves and what they make of the situation. The summary of the story can be told in three lines. But what transpires between them is what makes this story truly wonderful (and very, very creepy). 
 Clegg is a villain who would haunt me in my waking moments when I am alone at my home. He is who I never consider to look at as a bad guy in a crowd - a seemingly innocent face with a forgettable background but has a ruthless disposition about his obsession (or love, in the way he looks at things). Clegg is seemingly innocent and terribly horrific. I don't know if I want to sit across him in a cafe and talk about the way he looks at life or punch him in the face till he cannot speak anymore.