I have just finished reading The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. I found it diverting, and read the last two thirds or so very quickly, but I’m not sure that it’s all that brilliant now that I’ve finished it. I certainly don’t have the enthusiasm to re-read it on order to try to figure out what was ‘really’ going on.
I thought the overall story was a great idea, but I found the knowing pastiche quality a bit tiresome, and the ambiguity irritating rather than intriguing.
What did anyone else think of it? Any ideas as to the ‘hidden’ parts of the story, and as to who John’s father was?
Yay! I loved Quincunx. And how it was almost entirely plot, plot plot without a second’s breather.
I know what you mean though, I haven’t read it since the first time. I’ll wait until I have six months to spare.
The story was great and with some really exciting moments; in particular…
When John escaped from the nasty farm, when he thought he saw the codicil being burnt (I may be stupid, but I never even suspected that Bellringer may have copied it, despite all the clues) and when John escaped from his evil uncle.
I didn’t really mind the pastiche – I think Palliser seemed to be going for a direct Wilkie Collins thing for a while, but then his C20th mind-set crept in, and the book ending was quite different from what he’d planned, and very Un-Victorian (well, Victorian novel, anyway). And I loved how John was buffeted along by the plot for a long while before actually taking hold of his destiny. (Not sure if that’s Victorian or not.) And the structure is delicious – the part where the text which may be the key to the whole story is ripped out as it were right in the middle of the actual book – talking of which….
John’s father – can’t be Peter, right? He was far too wet. Could it have been that nice man with the evil wife (whose name I have forgotten)? That seems too obvious, as well. I love how it is made so completely unclear, in a story in which paternity is paramount.
It was all right. It certainly proved that you can mix Wilkie Collins and Thomas Pynchon, it just never really addressed the question of why you would want to do that in the first place.
I actually enjoyed Palliser’s more recent The Unburied much more. I bought in in an airport on a whim and absolutely devoured it during the flight. It’s another elaborate Victorian puzzle-piece, but with more emotional heft and far few pages than The Quincunx.