Quincunx

Rating:
Summary: If you read this book, pack your bags--you'll be gone awhile
Review: Charles Palliser has created an accessable masterpiece. The comparisons to Dickens are valid, but even Dickens probably couldn't have imagined some of the plot twisting circumstances found in Quincunx. Palliser lays bare some interesting unlit corners of Regency England, and does so deftly. Read this book at once, but beware--you will not be able to do any thing else for a few days.

Rating:
Summary: A fine historical mystery which could have been a classic.
Review: Charles Palliser weaves a wonderful tapestry but, towards the end, he seems to have become wearied by his mammoth task. In concealing his hero's age for so long he is contemptuous of his reader to no explicable end.The hero's mother is such an inadequate individual she evokes no sympathy for the ruin she brings upon herself. Two other principal female characters act irrationally, one of them to rescue the hero from a predicament- 'and in one bound he was free.' For me a potentially magnificent novel was reduced to a very good one. If I was to go on it would be to use words like 'ship' and 'penn'orth of tar' Nevertheless, I spent four days inside this story and I don't begrudge one minute.

Rating:
Summary: Probably the best plot ever conceived
Review: A marvelous reconstruction of Britain 2 centuries ago. I read it in five days, hardly able to get any sleep. A plot with a mathematical design, very lively written

Rating:
Summary: A great page turning romp through Regency England.
Review: You read the first chapter, where the characters are given the names of legal process, and wonder "What on earth is this all about". What you get is a compulsive read, where you are desperate to know how it resolves itself.Along the way you touch base with most of the themes of nineteenth century melodrama.

For example when the central character is consigned to school in Yorkshire, it is not a million miles from Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby. The legal issues are redolent of Bleak House. However this pastiche does not detract, as it is so clearly affectionate and true to type.

This is a big novel, and yet it reads like a much shorter book, so keen are you to know the outcome. Wrapped around the strong plot are characters of a frequently unusual type, notably the tragic figure of the hero's mother.

The great shame is that the author has not been able to repeat the trick

Rating:
Summary: A new literary standard has been established.
Review: Oscar Wilde once rebuked an editor for insisting upon a 100,000 word novel, replying that there 'were not so many beautiful words in the English language.' Mr. Palliser has proven him wrong several times over. I repeatedly caught myself believing that this novel was not a fictional account, but rather an intricately detailed biography of a family fighting to kill the heirs to its massive fortune. The lushly written prose and rapidly engaging plot made it literally impossible for me to put it down. I borrowed it from a dear friend and refused to return it for a period of several months. I can think of one book that surpasses The Quincunx in linguistic dexterity and visual imagery; unfortunately, the Bible isn't fiction, rendering a true comparison impossible.

Rating:
Summary: Dickens isn't this good.
Review:

Words don't really describe the immense pleasure that can be derived from reading this book. The development of plot and character throughout all its pages is without peer. I think that to compare it to Dickens is to drag its name in the mire. The Quincunx is a book so deep that only a fool would find it uninteresting. In addition to that it is so long so that it is wholly satisfying even though, myself and many with me, didn't appreciate the way it ended.

It is the story of a family torn apart by a large fortune, and the lengths that are taken to keep or receive the estate. The main character, a boy at the beginning of the book, and a young man at the end of the book, is the rightful heir to an inheritance that would make him extremely powerful and rich. But, there are members of his family that don't want him to live to see another day.

I highly recommend reading this book, if only for the experience of reading perhaps the best and most intricately planed book of all time.

Rating:
Summary: simply the most enjoyable read ever
Review: i highly recommend this book. i read it about 4 years ago and i feel i could recite each chapter. the story is hyptnotic, the characters unforgettable. do not miss this book

Rating:
Summary: Postponing the inevitable
Review: I am almost at the end of this wonderful book and I regret those nights I have stayed awake until 2am, unable to tear myself away from this fantastic story. If I'd just gone to bed at a reasonable hour I'd still have a long way to go. On my journey to work I've found myself wishing there were more escalators just so I can grab another paragraph. Thank goodness it's so long! Alas it's nearly finished and I'm torn between savouring it for as long as possible and solving the mysteries at last. What a great novel and heroic main character. Could I recommend this novel enough?

Rating:
Summary: Everything found in Dickens PLUS
Review: This has the characters, the breadth, and the scope of Dickens, plus a richness of theme that the master never even dreamt of. PLUS all the twists, turns, surprises and range of a Dickens plot without any of his cheap plotting tricks. This is a beautiful, haunting book which disappoints only by ending

Rating:
Summary: Shocking, gruesome, lyrical, mysterious...indescribable
Review: I read it 10 times. If it was a theme park, I'd vacation there. Wish it had a sequel (it has no equal). You know... I think I'll go home and read it again. :-