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The Quincunx: The Inheritance of John Huffam by: Charles Palliser

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Rating: - A long way from Dickens

This book is often referred to as a 'Victorian novel' or even as 'a homage to Dickens', but it is not particularly convincing even as a pastiche, and certainly never reaches the heights of Dickens, or even of Wilkie Collins best works. One reviewer has suggested that it is better than Dickens because it does not rely so heavily on over-stretched coincidence. Well it's true that the author goes to some lengths to supply explanations for the coincidences, but that does not mean that they are necessarily any more convincing. What the novel lacks, which Dickens supplies in abundance, is true characterisation and insight, and something truly worthwhile to say about the human condition. That is why Dickens is great and Palliser emerges as just another author. The Quincunx is on one level an entertaining and well researched romp through Victorian England, though one populated by depressingly one dimensional characters and an irritating and frustrating protagonist who does not know what is good for him (not to mention his mother who starts out as pretty and sweet but quickly proves to be merely vacuous, so much so that her fall from grace, which is actually sketched out in the most simplistic and shallow terms, evokes very little sympathy). It is often hard to suppress the desire to bang heads together, harder still to really care about any of the many, many characters who people the novel. The other key ingredient missing, if this book really has to be compared with Dickens, is humour. Dickens used this brilliantly, knowing as he did that it is as central to life as tragedy. It actually strengthens the pathos because it gives us chance to see life in the round - to see the close relationship between the serious and the ridiculous - whereas in Palliser's book it is almost entirely absent, just a relentless round of avarice, cruelty and betrayal (a comparison of the scenes at Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby, and the Quigg Academy in The Quincunx points this up very well). I give The Quincunx three stars for the research and the moderately gripping story, but I suspect that many another reader, like me, will feel cheated by the perfunctory and deeply ambiguous ending, and more annoyed still by Palliser's rather smug notes at the end, where he seems to be at pains to point out that the reader has probably not picked up the 'hidden text' of the book. Don't necessarily believe those who say that taking notes as you go along enables you to do this. It's equally likely to point up inconsistencies which make almost any interpretation of the protagonist's true origins insupportable. By the end though - for all that you may have enjoyed the recreation of early 19th Century London - the chances are that you will not particularly care.

Rating: - Scintillating

Encountered The Quincunx by accident and dived straight in, emerged several days later and wondered where I'd been - just had to read it again straight off. History, family, language and geometry, law and equity; this is impossibly complex yet very easy to read...difficult to stop reading it. An Experience.

Rating: - A sense of comic consternation

A tremendous achievement at 1,206 pages, packed with action and adventure. The Quincunx, despite its length, doesn't flag for a moment. The story is narrated mostly by the young son of a genteel widow, who, as the book opens, is living in seclusion on the annuity from a relative's will. Slowly but surely the money fails through mismanagement by the family lawyer.

John Huffam, who is the heir to a rich estate, is the boy in question. His inheritance is in chancery, however, under dispute by the members of a bewildering number of people, some of whom seem to have as strong a claim as John's. The plot remorselessly invokes the fall in society of the boy and his mother, their degeneration into poverty and the machinations of his enemies to make sure he can never inherit his due.

The blurb on the cover calls it a pastiche of the Victorian novel, but it is every bit as entertaining and engrossing as one of Dickens' central character novels, Nicholas Nickleby, say, or David Copperfield. It is only as the connections made in the book work themselves through the narrative that the element of pastiche makes itself felt. As this happens one feels a sense of comic consternation - what else can possibly happen to John! The connections of almost everyone to almost everyone else are further pastiche elements that, as they are revealed, give the reader a series of considerably fun-filled jolts.

This is a very readable, enjoyable and gripping book. However, its length means you may need to set aside a week or more to read it. You won't regret it.

Rating: - An excellent modern "victorian" novel with a dense and complex plot

I read this book about 15 years ago and it still resonates. Whilst the book is modern, it feels like a victorian novel with a plot which is extremely complex and dense. Wilkie Collins springs to mind although unlike a victorian novel, the pace is faster to suit the modern taste. I have no idea whether a second read would confirm this earlier impression.

Rating: - Dickensian and a suspenseful mystery - what's not to love?

Great, dense plot and a myriad of beautifully drawn characters. It feels very much like a Dickens novel written for a modern audience. Our hero's flight from persecution gives the novel great momentum. As a novel it's like a cross between Wilkie Collins (strong mystery/thriller element), Dickens (Victorian social commentary) and Elizabeth Gaskell (sympathetic portrait of the poor). It seems, indeed, that our author has picked the best bits from his favourite Victorian novelists and put them into this book. Indeed the very name of our hero, John Huffam, is lifted straight from Dickens' full name which is Charles John Huffam Dickens.

Covering quite a long time period and with our hero not knowing why's he's being chased or where he's going does have a tendency to make the whole piece feel a bit sprawling. Frankly, I'd have given it a tough edit. The solving of the principal mystery gives the ending a really satisfying feeling but there are other, smaller mysteries that aren't really concluded. I think I'm meant to make a guess but I could do with a few more clues! Rippling beneath these great mystery stories is a more subtle, social story which encompasses rural and city life in Victorian England. It's that additional texture that makes this such a fulfilling read.

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