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The Red Room
The Red Room
- GenresShort Stories
30 pages, Paperback
16 people want to read
About the author
L.M. Montgomery
1,861 books13.2k followersLucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 2, 2024
2 stars. This is a dark, wild, Gothic story, more so than
Jane Eyre
... more along the lines of
Rebecca.
Actually, it reminded me quite a bit of that book. It’s a sad story, full of misery and wrongdoing, beautifully written and rather haunting, with strong characters and a good little message or two tucked subtly away… but I can’t get over the fact that it’s told by a grandma to her grandchild… or the fact that the grandma was a grandchild herself when she witnessed all this…
Content: Married woman in a very immodest dress & husband is displeased. Lots of passion and hatred. Murder.
Content: Married woman in a very immodest dress & husband is displeased. Lots of passion and hatred. Murder.
October 17, 2021
Well, I guess I could perhaps consider trying to appreciate Lucy Maud Montgomery’s 1898 short story The Red Room as a “Gothic Thriller” type of writing experiment, complete with an overwhelmingly creepy atmosphere, marital infidelity leading to cold blooded murder and an old family with an aristocratically outlandish sounding name being full of and replete with a myriad of secrets, lies and tragedy (and all narrated by a grandmother to her grandchild as some kind of family memoir horror tale).
But really, even with regard to Lucy Maud Montgomery obviously trying to make The Red Room in every way as spooky as possible, sorry, textually speaking (and in my humble opinion) Montgomery’s narrative flow is so ridiculously overwrought in The Red Room that the entire story of Hugh Montressor’s murder by his unfaithful and wayward young wife Alicia actually tends to feel so unbelievably artificial that I do actually rather feel as though I am in fact reading an inadvertent parody (and that in fact, during Hugh Montressor’s death scene, I in fact have ended up giggling a bit derisively, although I am more than well aware of the fact that L.M. Montgomery is obviously trying to be totally and utterly serious here, is trying to show a tragedy occurring, but that no, the exaggeratedness of narration and description just does not permit me to consider The Red Room as to be taken seriously as a tragedy but to consider both contents and writing style as just too overly strange and overdone).
And considering that how Lucy Maud Montgomery also and automatically makes Hugh Montressor’s new bride Alicia appear as some “bad to the bone genetically” exotic and inherently dangerous person simply because of her ethnically “foreign” background, indeed and truly, combined with how ridiculously exaggerated The Red Tent is, yes, the story, Montgomery’s writing is naturally also rather majorly politically incorrect, maybe a sign of the times to be sure, but equally really very much making for very much uncomfortable and annoying reading, and in fact so much so that whenever I do reread Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side (the L.M. Montgomery short fiction collection where I first encountered The Red Tent) I usually make a point of actively skipping over The Red Tent.
But really, even with regard to Lucy Maud Montgomery obviously trying to make The Red Room in every way as spooky as possible, sorry, textually speaking (and in my humble opinion) Montgomery’s narrative flow is so ridiculously overwrought in The Red Room that the entire story of Hugh Montressor’s murder by his unfaithful and wayward young wife Alicia actually tends to feel so unbelievably artificial that I do actually rather feel as though I am in fact reading an inadvertent parody (and that in fact, during Hugh Montressor’s death scene, I in fact have ended up giggling a bit derisively, although I am more than well aware of the fact that L.M. Montgomery is obviously trying to be totally and utterly serious here, is trying to show a tragedy occurring, but that no, the exaggeratedness of narration and description just does not permit me to consider The Red Room as to be taken seriously as a tragedy but to consider both contents and writing style as just too overly strange and overdone).
And considering that how Lucy Maud Montgomery also and automatically makes Hugh Montressor’s new bride Alicia appear as some “bad to the bone genetically” exotic and inherently dangerous person simply because of her ethnically “foreign” background, indeed and truly, combined with how ridiculously exaggerated The Red Tent is, yes, the story, Montgomery’s writing is naturally also rather majorly politically incorrect, maybe a sign of the times to be sure, but equally really very much making for very much uncomfortable and annoying reading, and in fact so much so that whenever I do reread Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side (the L.M. Montgomery short fiction collection where I first encountered The Red Tent) I usually make a point of actively skipping over The Red Tent.
December 3, 2021
This gothic short story is written in the tradition of dark Christmas stories, which were popular during the Victorian era. This macabre tale is narrated in the voice of a grandmother to her grandchild, reflecting on a Christmas ball of her childhood and the sinister side of family heritage and relationships. "The Red Room," is a favored family parlor, whose name has meanings other than the innocent reference to the decor. Perhaps too with literary references to the red room of Bronte's _Jane Eyre_. Most troubling about the story, as was perhaps Montgomery's intention, are the repeated references to "race" in association with family belonging. Trigger warnings for suicide and domestic violence.
June 18, 2025
A very dark tale. Not her best.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews