Quincunx

Rating:
Summary: The best book I ever read - almost
Review: What can I say that hasn't been said in the other fifty reviews? This book kept me going. I didn't want to go to sleep, but then I didn't want to be reading it so tired I would miss all the nuances and references that would be important hundreds of pages later. No other book has ever kept me flipping back to parts I had already read to see if I missed anything. As I was reading I kept referring to the family trees and trying to fill in the blanks as I went along. Looking for the addresses on the maps helped add to the realistic flavor of the book as well.

I had to keep repeating to myself, It's only a book, as all the misfortunes befell young John and his mother. In fact, Jeoffrey Huffam's legacy of misery was stretching the bounds of belief, but as I repeated to myself, It's only a book.

Why wasn't this the best book I had ever read? It wasn't the anticlimatic ending. I suppose certain people could have inherited the estate and lived happily ever after, but it wasn't to be. I could also understand John's change of heart by the end. (I still don't understand one other person's sudden change of heart though).

I think that by the end, I was ready for some conclusion, and to be able to see the final, complete family tree. After eight hundred or so pages, enough was enough.

Despite this, it still was a great read. I love getting lost in a book, and you certainly do here.

One small complaint - the reader should be warned about the list of characters at the back. I looked up one or two, not realizing the spoilers in there.

Now to cast the movie. Haley Joel Osmont as young John?

Rating:
Summary: A Puzzler
Review: This novel has a quality of grabbing at the reader with its serials-style suspense plots and cliffhangers. It is intricately constructed; in fact, the author appears to have been so enamored of complexity in intertwined plots that he makes the reading labored at some points, the characters suffer from lack of dimensionality, and the narrative suffers from repeated structure, especially with the continuing trials and tribulations set forth by kidnappers and assassins.

Palliser clearly has researched history and literature in attempting to reconstruct a gothic sensation novel. He provides almost an excess of period detail and the setting seems to take precedence over character development. The protagonist clearly suffers within a web of intrigue but for all his speculation and effort the reader does not "get into" his feelings as much as his thoughts. The villains are hateful and approach a "mustache-twirling" quality. The remaining characters are vague and ill-defined, perhaps victims of the author's intention to have virtually everyone in the book a suspect for wrong-doing. The most serious consequence of this character vagueness is that the resolution of the last peril episode is inadequately explained, for it hinges on a critical change in attitude by one of the major players. The author's cleverness becomes problematic too when, in his sweeping attempt to make this epic cover many years and locales, the plethora of characters are called at some times by their first names, at others by their last names, at still others by nicknames, and some even have assumed monickers in addition! The mystery thus takes on a confusing and frustrating quality.

The perils that befall the protagonist have the feel of serials publishing like Dickens and filmed entertainment like Saturday matinees and soap operas. By sheer number the adventures become repetitious and at times strain credibility. Also, particularly in the second quarter of the book, the perils were so sordid and revolting that I felt a sadist for continuing to read. Palliser provides occasional relief from this when he has the protagonist make mention of a future thought, reassuring that the current nightmare is survived. Of course, the ultimate fate of the main character is ensured by the narrative structure of the book (first person) and so it is the supporting characters for whom we must be most uncertain and fearful, to the extent that our emotional investment allows. I felt the book resolved the mysteries and the events came together in the last few pages in a most satisfying way, with characters behaving with the ambivalence and uncertainty one would expect after such torturous experiences. This novel is absolutely a tour de force in research, plotting, pace, and intricacy. Its weaknesses in character development and human insight prevent it from achieving the depth of a Dickens or Bronte novel. It is more on a par, perhaps, with a Radcliffe.

Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: Buy this book if you have to sell your grandmother to organ traders to do so.

A young boy in 19th Century London struggles against mysterious enemies and fights to regain his rightful inheritance. Somewhat in the manner of Wilkie Collins or Dickens, with a slight, although never obtrusive, modern spin. I was so caught up I was yelling at the characters. 'No! Don't trust him! It's a trick! Doh!'

So unputdownable your loved ones will have to feed you intravenously.

Rating:
Summary: Splendid literary historical novel
Review: "The Quincunx" is a Victorian novel written very much in the spirit of the times, rather than from today's perspective. Snip: (...)

Rating:
Summary: A completely engrossing tale!
Review: I have just finished reading "The Quincunx" and as yet have not been able to find my way back to the present time after having followed the adolescent John, the novel's hero, on his eventful wanderings through the England of the 1820s. John - without knowing it at first - will be pronounced heir to a vast estate in Northern England if certain documents are laid before a court. As was to expected, there are other parties involved that would greatly benefit either by withholding those documents or by killing John, and that is why he finds himself constantly on the run and hiding in London, that overwhelmingly multifarious metropolis, eventually finding (almost) all the answers to his questions.

At roughly 800 pages this might seem to be a frighteningly voluminous book, but the story yields so many fascinating details and John is such an endearing character that I was literally swept along the pages and managed to finish the book within a week. Indisputably, Mr Palliser's narrative technique bears a great resemblance to Charles Dickens' writing style, but as for who is the better writer let it just be said that I was equally moved by "The Quincunx" as I was filled with enthusiasm when I read "David Copperfield" a couple of years ago - and this should be sufficient proof of the magnificence of Mr Palliser's achievement!

Rating:
Summary: Deathmarch
Review: Ugh. Like wading waist deep through a vast pool of dark green muck. Too dark too consistently, and hopelessly confusing. Palliser does create a vision of the age quite well; we can definitely see where the 15 years of research went. Two stars for frustration. Dostoevsky is easier to read.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: Read this book straight through - and spend days afterward recovering from the lost sleep. Lose your way both in the intricacies and levels of society within Restoration England and within the fabulously constructed plot of this gifted author. A masterwork to recommend to your friends.

Rating:
Summary: The Author Pulls His Punches At The End
Review: The Quincunx was among the first of a number of novels written in the last decade or so of the 20th century which set their stories in the 19th century. A. S. Byatt's Possession is probably the best known of this crop of novels.

The details of life in the early 19th c. conjured up by Palliser are arresting, as are the convolutions in the plot as the protagonist blunders his way toward the solution of a family mystery which, all unknowing, engulfs him as a young man. The flaws in this book, however, are Palliser's failure to provide much character development and his apparent determination to use every scrap of research which he unearthed in his research about 19th c. England.

The apparent determination to use all of his research results in long segments of the novel in which the forward progress of the protagonist's quest halts and in which we are treated, for example, to a lengthy examination of life for the lowest order of household servants. This same desire to use every scrap of research marred the otherwise absorbing novel, the Alienist, by Caleb Carr, set in 19th c. New York City.

More troubling, however, is that Palliser brings the quest for the family mystery to a triumphant end, and yet has his protagonist behave in a manner which is utterly inconsistent with all of his prior behavior. The inconsistency is so marked and there is so little preparation for it that it truly mars an otherwise absorbing novel.

Indeed, the last quarter of the novel feels as though Palliser, having taken ten years to work on the previous 3/4s, rushed the remainder of the novel and the resolution of the plot to the publisher. There is, in fact, a rather perfunctory air to the prose of the last 1/4 of the novel, as well as the manner in which the protagonist comes to act as he does which rather spoils the novel.

Overall, I enjoyed the Quincunx and did not regret reading it. I found it absorbing and fascinating. The last of the novel and its indifferent handling of plot and character rather spoil it, however.

Rating:
Summary: Astonishingly good
Review: The Quincunx is a novel like no other. I do believe that in later years it will be regarded as one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. But for now, it doesn't seem to fit into the experimental categories to which we ascribe modern greatness. So just approach it as a devilishly good read, a book that will imprison you for days or weeks (depending on your self-restraint and on how much of a life you're ready to continue having while reading it). I can't wait until I get the chance to read it again.

Rating:
Summary: A Dickensian Delight
Review: It took we three weeks to get past the first seventy pages, but once I did I couldn't put it down. The plot is as twisted as the quincunx knot pictured on the cover. It is not for the faint of heart or those who want the predigested pablum of modern publishing. If you persevere you will be rewarded with a wondrous reading experience.