The Corsican brothers and Otho, the Archer

This pairing of Dumas novellas makes for an odd book as, other than the author obviously, there is nothing to connect the two stories. Maybe they are earlier works of his which were later discovered because there is little of the flourish I expected. The Corsican Brothers is a lightly supernatural tale of separated Siamese twins who retained a psychic connection. Dumas stars himself as narrator apparently seriously recounting an adventure undertaken in Corsica and its Parisian aftermath. There is lots of nice description of the Corsican landscape and of everyone's clothing and appearance, but I didn't think the story ever decided whether it wanted to be a spooky ghost-like tale, or a straight adventure so ultimately fell between the two stools. Otho The Archer is an even stranger amalgamation of genres. This story meanders all over Medieval France being by turns chivalric romance, Christian religious fantasy, road trip, zombie epic, ghost story and history lesson. Despite, this it's not a bad read, but I wonder if this was Dumas' finished effort or if its publication happened by a more circuitous route. I felt as if several narrative strands had been sandwiched together, not because they realistically belonged, but more to make up enough of a word count.