The Quincunx

I truly enjoyed this book. As an avid Dickens fan, I noted many similarities (and some outright theft), which I regard as a good thing. The story is complex and layered (as you will discover as you note the many family trees, the maps, and the glossary of characters). I like a complicated story line and a multitude of colorful characters. I also truly enjoyed the trip through Victorian England, with its quaint villages, its stately homes, and its shabby London alleyways. This story takes you through all the levels of Victorian society from the houses of the low born to the high, from the country to the city, from the poor to the professionals to the leisure class.I had a couple of complaints. First, there are many past histories that impact the present story, but we have no intimate knowledge of these historical personages, so it is difficult to keep them and their relationships straight. Second, the author heaps so many hardships on our protagonist, that we become overwhelmed at points. In a Dickens novel, we are downtrodden, then we rise a while, then we fall again, and then our fortunes turn. There are periods of rest in a Dickens novel when things are going relatively well, you know the shoe is going to drop, but we can take a breath and relax a while. This book offers no rest for the weary and we are persecuted from one end of England to the other.But don't let these minor complaints deter you. Its an absorbing and picturesque novel that is well worth the time you will put into it.

After reading Charles Palliser's "Quincunx" I felt as if I had participated in a triathlon. This is not a book for those with short attention spans or for those who lack patience. Although I usually like epic novels, if the plot is interesting and varied and the characters well developed, I found this novel very difficult to get through. The book has been hyped as "Dickensian" but the only similarities to the work of Charles Dickens' lie in its length, 781 densely printed pages, its setting, Victorian England, and many of its characters who are the poor and disenfranchised. The quality of writing, storyline and character development are not at all comparable to that of the great novelist.Young John Huffam, our hero, and his mother have been hiding from their enemies from the time of his birth. John is heir to vast lands and a title, which seemingly every character in the book lays claim to. There is a lost will and a secret codicil that officially proclaim John the rightful heir to enormous wealth. The entire novel is based on his search for his identity and for his hereditary rights. Parallel to this purpose are the many attempts to thwart him, usually by greedy family members he has no knowledge of. They either want John dead, or alive and in their power. For the duration of the novel John barely escapes from one near-death experience after another. In spite of his obvious intelligence and precocity, he is totally blind to all clues about his true history and dilemma. He naively trusts everyone, even after numerous betrayals. He bumbles from one mishap to another, with apparently half of London's population following him and wishing him ill.The plot is very simplistic, and the author's attempts to make the storyline more complex, with various and sundry twists and turns, fail because, with all their intricacy, there are just too many coincidences here to form a credible plot. Even Houdini couldn't have escaped from some of the episodes young John manages to extricate himself from.The character development is nil. John's mother is probably the shallowest, least likable fictional character I have met in years. With all her problems, I found it difficult to summon much sympathy for her. I believe this is because she is extremely flat, one dimensional, as are all the book's characters, including John. The book introduces us to many villains, very few decent folks and a few martyrs. There is little variation and even less humanity and basic decency here. A key at the back of the book lists all the characters and I found myself using it constantly, much to my surprise. I have read most of Dickens, and many Russian authors who cast their novels with multitudes of characters. I do not remember ever using a list to keep track of them. When I thought about this I realized that because Mr. Palliser's characters lacked the most basic development, they never came to life for me and thus my memory problem.I did give the book 3 stars, mainly because the author managed to persuade me to complete it. And completing the read was indeed a difficult process, but I did want to find out the conclusion. I suppose I could have just read the last page.For those who are interested, a 'Quincunx' is an arrangement of five objects with one at each corner of a rectangle or square and one at the center. The heraldic device used by all members of John's family took the form of a quincunx.JANA

This is a very long book, and I'll admit that I've not yet finished it. However, I'm very impressed with the story and the style. Capturing the setting, the times and the style of a Dickensian novel, it's the story of a boy who lives with his widowed mother in a small English village. They have a pleasant though not luxurious life until several unexpected developments and financial reversals (along with a mystery the mother won't discuss with her son) force them to leave everything and flee to London. Along the way, their belongings and money are stolen, and they arrive in London virtually penniless and are soon adrift and at the mercy of a city that offers them nothing but further loss and few kindnesses. There seems to be some secret concerning the boy's parentage, and a secret document that could alter their circumstances, but the mother refuses to divulge its contents even as the two are forced to live in worsening poverty and ever more desperate situations.

Despite the description which said that the book while having been read was "in excellent condition. Pages intact... spine undamaged", in fact, the first pages are coming away from the spine, the book is slightly grubby and the cover itself has been stuck over with transparent plastic, making it make look like a library book. In addition, it looks as if the pages have been roughly cut during printing, which isn't the retailer's fault but doesn't amount to "excellent condition". So, only two stars to the retailer this time.

Love this huge and mesmerising saga . Great for those who love to get lost in a good book for ages !

Once I had started, I simply wasn't able to put this down. A rollicking adventure, full of twists, turns and blind alleys, set in a marvellous evocation of its period.

This is one of my favourite books, and to have it in such good condition in hardback is a real treat! Service was fantastic, on time and delivered what it said it would. 10/10.

Of course, one must respect the enormous work that was certainly required to bring to life all those characters, from the poorest to the richest of the victorian society.I suppose that, if you print out the genealogic trees, included in the book, and take a few notes to remember the contents of the Huffam will and codicil, it should be possible to follow up more precisely the legal developments throughout the book.I felt unsatisfied at the end of the book to have seen so many characters often dramatically disappear, to have followed all the hero's sufferings, to finally end on quite a dull note, as he is alone and unsure of what to do with the Huffam domain.