There's at least a star here for all the work that went into researching this. It's the kind of thing that's right in my wheelhouse--complex, self-consistent historical mystery. The kicker here is that it's self-consistent in it's inconsistency, something even harder to pull off. ( )

I didn't think they wrote books like this any more. I will admit to having a great deal of affection for the nineteenth century novel and this novel ranks alongside those sweeping novels written by Dickens and Eliot in its complexity and density. Wonderful. ( )

Wow - this was some novel! A sprawling period mystery set in 1800's London -- young John Huffman struggles to survive misfortune and peril while uncovering his family history and perhaps recovering his inheritance. No description can really do the story justice -- suffice it to say that the reader is absorbed into a complex web of secrets, coincindences, half-truths, and revelations that is nothing short of enthralling. And at times almost maddening - just when you think you have things figured out . . .

It very much reminded me of Dickens' 'Bleak House,' and a bit of Caleb Carr's 'The Alienist' - the writing was dense, detailed and evocative. It is one of those books you become so involved with - hours upon hours reading and cogitating over, dreaming of, almost -- that you are bereft when you're finished.

Anyway, I loved it. Unfortunately, I find I am still uncertain about a few things - I think Palliser meant us to be, though. But I did manage to puzzle some things out before the big reveals. Perhaps too many peril and rescue adventures though; and I got a bit tired of Barney and his whole crew.

Highly recommended for lovers of long involved mysteries. Be prepared to be perplexed, frustruated, captivated - but most of all thouroughly entertained. ( )

Though Palliser is often compared to Dickens in the blurbs here he is not like Dickens, except in his penchant for a Victorian setting. Dickens' books are Victorian novels. Palliser's book is a novel with a Victorian setting. The vocabulary cannot begin to match Dickens', who was so much a product of his time and place. Whereas Dickens, by page 156--where I stopped reading--would have introduced 50 characters in 12 or more different scenes, Palliser remains with one character: the narrator, Johnny Huffam. Oh, how one longs for another point of view! One is, moreover, reminded of Henry James when he said that a long first-person narrative can be "barbaric." I never thought that was necessarily true, until now. After a while the long intimacy begins to wear. By page 156 I was sick of Johnny's mother saying, for the 100,000th time, that Johnny would learn about "things" when he was old enough to know. I do not believe you can use the same device to sustain suspense for 156 pages. And Palliser hardly needs to make her so insistent. The plot itself is enough to bear us along. How much more interesting for the reader if Palliser were to have taken these moments to give us more of the mother's character, who, as someone in this thread has observed, without such background seems merely stupid. Palliser is terrific with dialect. But I wish he had used it sparingly; the book is so crammed with it that it becomes a slog to read. Finally, when it comes to much of the non-dialect dialogue, there is an almost needling sameness of tone . Johnny simply whines and one grows tired. There little modulation of tone and the effect becomes one of flatness. The narrator never steps back for an instant to take in the larger view. Presumably because to do so would mean the collapse of the extraordinarily intricate plot. So Johnny has to stay perpetually whatever his current age is in the scene, for he does grow up over time, though s-l-o-w-l-y. I admire Palliser's powers of application, which are prodigious. He is reported to have spent 12 years on The Quincunx. Dickens would have written a book of comparable length in 9-10 months.

One of the first books I read this year was The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. It was published in 1989 and is almost 800 pages long. It is set in 19th century England -- a period I read about quite frequently. I had seen this book a few times over the years at my local Barnes and Noble on the shelf for books recommended by store employees. The book has no synopsis on the back so it took me a few years to decide to read it.

I think if it did have a synopsis it would be simply this "the story of a boy who becomes a man - in a field of rakes". You know this image from cartoons -- the unfortunate character steps one direction onto a rake that snaps up and nails him in the face and when he turns to go another direction, another rake is there to hit him in the nose again. This book was 787 pages of agony. And yet --- I would read it again. I know, what am I thinking, right? But the book was thoroughly engaging and though you knew the worst would happen -- because it kept happening -- you hoped in each situation that this would be the time that it worked out for young John Huffam. But sadly, there would be 400 pages left with no story and so it continued through the whole book.

The Quincunx, by the way, is the five-pieced symbol on the cover of the book. It represents the five families that are players in the story.

Who would I recommend this book to? Anyone with a lot of patience for misery, an interest in the less-fortunates of 19th century London or the desire to completely escape into another era for a week or two as this book is quite a long read.

http://webereading.com/2008/07/it-mus... ( )