I really wanted to like Open the Door and there were sections that I enjoyed reading about the adventures and escapades of Joanna Bannerman from Glasgow to Italy to London but Carswell puzzled me sometimes with the intellectual powers that she conveyed on her heroine. Sometimes Joanna sounded like a philosopher and from her other personality characteristics that ability didn't jibe with the ordinary human being that she was.
There were many trite descriptions and passages in the book and too many staged coincidences but for all that I'm not sorry I read it as I believe that it was a fairly accurate autobiographical account of Carswell's own life and she certainly lived an adventurous and unconventional life for a woman whose work was published in 1920. Hats off to her! ( )