(2 of 2)
The Dickensian overtones are impossible to ignore. John's situation seems a direct conflation of Great Expectations and Bleak House: he has the hope that his fortunes may improve and the knowledge that, if he survives, he may spend the rest of his days in fruitless litigation. But his adventures call to mind a host of other Victorian novels as well. He is sent briefly to a Yorkshire school and enters the harsh world of Nicholas Nickleby; he overhears a former governess tell her life story, and the events and diction take on the coloration of Jane Eyre.
Fortunately, such echoes do not make The Quincunx a mausoleum of older books. Palliser brings his scenes, no matter how familiar, vividly to life. John's hunted movements through London expose him to the full expanse of the sprawling city and to all tiers of its society. He appears before the Chancery judge in Westminster Hall and marvels wryly at the pomp: "The Master was wearing a costume in which it was so impossible to believe that he had knowingly attired himself, that it seemed that it was only by a polite conspiracy among his observers that no-one drew his attention to it." At one of his nadirs, the boy searches for coins among the appalling muck of Thames- side sewers.
For all its vibrancy, The Quincunx occasionally seems to be too much of a good thing. In order to wring maximum suspense out of each encounter, Palliser allows his narrator some shameless stalling. "Not so fast," one character remarks, when asked a leading question, and the reader is inclined to mutter, "Faster." John's mother is particularly maddening in her refusals to answer her son's questions. A typical response: "No, I won't tell you that. Not yet. One day you'll know everything." Postulate a more forthcoming parent, and the novel would be 200 pages shorter.
Still, patient readers will find their investment of time worthwhile. The book's leisurely pace contributes to the overall effect of uncanny impersonation. Victorian novels were not brisk because people had plenty of time to spend with them. Now it is difficult to go home after work, put some wood in the fireplace, light candles or gas lamps, and settle in for a long, peaceful evening. The Quincunx suggests how much fun that could be.