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Quincunx | 
 enlarge | Author: Charles Palliser
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Category: Book
List Price: £10.71
Buy Collectible: £0.33
You Save: £10.38 (97%)
Used (19) Collectible (1) from £0.33
Rating:  24 reviews
Sales Rank: 469560
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Pages: 800
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.7 x 1.4
ISBN: 0345371135
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780345371133
ASIN: 0345371135
Publication Date: January 1991
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 19 more reviews...
 best book I've read in a long time May 26, 2008
Barbara A. Middleton (UK.)
Having read some of the reviews here on this book I do agree with some points made by others.It was a very convoluted plot and John did escape from situations which were impossible to believe.Also some of the characters were fairly one dimensional and there were so many of them.I too had to keep looking them up to see who they were and where they fitted into the plot.John's mother was a pain and you felt you wanted to shake her.However this was a book you couldn't put down. I took it on holiday expecting it to last three weeks but it took only one as I read it whenever possible. As for any political aspects,well it's a novel and meant to entertain the reader and this it does in spades.
Palliser's perfect page-turner October 26, 2007
Jim Bead (London)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I'm completely baffled by the review below of one my favourite books. Has Book Maven read the same book that I have?
His/her chief problem with it seems to be that it is not an historically accurate analysis of the Industrial Revolution. I could understand this being an issue if the book was billed as 'the definitive account of the Industrial Revolution' but er...it's a novel. It's a thriller, a mystery, a tribute to Dickens, Wilkie Collins et al, and it doesn't purport to be anything other than that.
Also, to say, 'the characters are one-dimentional [sic], the bad are bad the good are good (and of course the good are poor and the bad are rich),' is simply factually incorrect.
I could go on but the bottom line is that The Quincunx a brilliant read. If you like Dickens/Collins, mysteries, or historical fiction, I think you'll love this. Actually, if you like books, you'll love this.
 A professor's didactic novel October 25, 2007
Book Maven (Cambridge, England)
3 out of 13 found this review helpful
Charles Dickens had a good reason for writing volumes - he was paid by the word. His disciple Charles Palliser was not, so no such justification for the self-indulgent verbosity of this novel exists.
This is a didactic novel that cries out loud to its reader that it has been written by a professor of Eng.Lit. The didacticism and the insider jokes work and co-exist on several levels, making the novel appear deeper than it is, and lending it an air of unwarranted literary sophistication.
The best way to characterise this novel is to say that it is an elaborate, phantasmagoric fantasy of Victorian England as is current in left-wing and liberal rhetoric in England and America. It is a gory nightmare of families starving on the streets, prostituted women and exploited children, spiced by gross descriptions of physical filth and egged on by elaborate portraits of rich sadists who preside over the entire bedlam.
Palliser could well have dated the narrative of his novel a century or two earlier, 1740s or 1640s instead of 1840s. Historically the story would be correct - mud, widespread poverty, enclosure of the commons, etc. As it is a reader working patiently through his tome and having no alternative sources on early 19th century England would not guess in a hunderd years that at this very time the face of the country is transformed by the Industrial Revolution.
In socialist and liberal rhetoric such a gory vision of Victorian England is used in the advocacy of measures such as the welfare state, state control of markets, education, etc. In this novel it fulfills the same role. Palliser tells us in all too many words that unless we consent to an all-encompassing welfare state in which the (socialist or liberal) state controls everything from markets to travel fares then we a) consent to a re-enactment of the nightmarish society of his novel, and b) justify any and all inhuman and degrading treatment of the poor prior to the introduction of the late 20th century welfare state.
Thus taken as a political tract the novel is neither particularly complex nor innovative. It is the same argumentation - and the same apocalyptic fantasy of Victorian England - that left-wing writing usually uses to advocate or justify state control in general and the welfare state in particular.
As a work of literature the novel fails on several counts. Firstly, it is unnecessarily long and convoluted, so the reader tends to get lost in the plot. Secondly, the characters are one-dimentional, the bad are bad the good are good (and of course the good are poor and the bad are rich). Thirdly, the emphasis on the iniquities and absurdities of contemporary land law tends to take over in the narrative over the historical or the psychological.
In the afterword Palliser confesses that he had written the novel over the 12 years of Margaret Thatcher's rule, as a response to her criticism of the welfare state. It's a pity, because the overt politicisation of writing distorts both writing and research.
Overall, I would recommend this novel to those who share the writer's politics. To them this gory Victorian fantasy, although unpleasant and historically incorrect, would provide at least some satisfaction. To others I would suggest investing in a non-fiction, balanced history of 19th century England or the memoirs of Victorian philanthropists, industrialists and social reformers. This will provide a more balanced and true overview of an epoch that changed not only England but the entire world.
A delight to read! August 12, 2007
Lovetoread (U.K.)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I absolutely loved this book! I had been interested in reading it since first publication in 1989, but had been put off by the length. I finally took the plunge last year and, despite the complexity of the plot, I found it to be a surprisingly easy book to read. I thought about it all the time when I wasn't actually reading it and I plan to read it again in a year or two.
If you enjoy Victorian novels, then don't miss this book, which pays homage to many of Dickens' novels. (John and Huffam are Dickens' middle names). The story centres on a young boy, John Huffam, who falls on very hard times in London, after very comfortable early years in the country. There is mystery around who his father actually is and much family intrigue around wills and inheritance. The details of London life in the nineteenth century had clearly been very well researched and were a joy to read. I must admit that I took notes and page numbers for key plot issues, so that I could refer back. I've never done that with a novel before but it did help!
This book deserves to be much more widely known.
a tour de force August 1, 2007
paul (England)
2 out of 12 found this review helpful
what can i say, this book is mind-blowing. i literally coundn't put this book down, it is definitely one of the best books i have ever read.
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