Someone recently told me that Agatha Christie cited Anna Katharine Green as one of the authors who greatly influenced her writing. You may or may not know that Agatha Christie is a hero of mine (you’ve probably already figured that out, based on my love of writing and my love of cozy mysteries). While I have been unable to find confirmation that Christie said this about Green (please email me if you have confirmation), I decided to read some of Green’s works. Many of them are available in the public domain, so I downloaded a few.
When selecting which Anna Katharine Green book to begin with, I chose The Old Stone House and Other Stories. As it was a collection of short stories, I felt that this was a good way to introduce myself to the author. I was somewhat disappointed.
The story of the "Old Stone House" is the first story in the collection. It is interesting enough, and the author’s style is pleasant. The problem with the story is that it is too long. It would probably qualify as a novella if it were published alone. Not that I have a problem with novellas. I actually love them. The problem with this story is that it felt a little too long. It dragged a bit as it built its tension.
The story started off moving quite quickly; then it shifted to a slower pace. This pace continued to slow more and more. Suddenly, about two-thirds of the way through the story, the pacing picked back up again.
While the story was interesting enough, the pacing was off-putting.
The second story in the book “A Memorable Night” was very interesting, although a bit odd. I liked the story and was quite caught up in it. I did find that the solution of the story was a bit off. It was almost like the red herring ended up being the solution, and the solution was the red herring. It had a disconcerting effect, but was entertaining none the less.
“The Black Cross” was a scary bit of historical fiction. It did, however, have a nice theme of love (although I am not sure that the Judge was exactly heroic).
Perhaps my favorite story in the book was “A Mysterious Case”. This story had an unusual plot and solution for its time. It’s odd that my two favorites so far were this story and “A Memorable Night”. Both of these stories have Doctors as their protagonists. Maybe I have a thing for Doctors. As protagonists. My husband is a farmer.
The last story “Shall He Wed Her?” started off interesting, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the solution. I think that this probably bodes poorly for the story in itself.
As a whole, I was disappointed in this collection of stories. This will not cause me to write the author off just yet, though. I did find with Marie Belloc Lowndes (who has quickly become on of my favorite authors) that her collection of short stories was not up to snuff with the rest of her novels. While I made a conscious decision to start with Green’s short stories as an introduction, I now realize that I may have done so in error. I have decided that, while I can’t recommend this collection (although it is pleasant enough, and free) as a truly great read, I will read one of the author’s longer works before I decide to write this author off completely.
Don’t own a Kindle, but would like to? The latest generation of Kindle is available at the following links: with WiFi only or with WiFi and 3G.
Christy Parker is the author of three blogs: Ruminations from and Unkempt Mind, Learn to Crochet - In Minutes a Day, and You Be the Editor.
For comments, questions, notes or suggestions; Mrs. Parker can be reached in the blog specific forums on the product information pages listed above or via email at unkemptruminations@comcast.net.
No comments:
Post a Comment