The Quincunx

This article may require copy-editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (August 2009)

The Quincunx (The inheritance of John Huffam) is the epic first novel of Charles Palliser. It takes the form of a Dickensian mystery set in early 19th century England, but Palliser has added the modern attributes of an unreliable narrator and an inconclusive ending. So, beyond a straightforward reading, the book offers the puzzle of extracting alternative underlying explanations of events^[1].

Plot

The book charts the fortunes over a number of years of a single mother and her young son, John Huffam, through the eyes of the latter. There is a complex web of scheming and conspiracies between five families - the Huffams, the Mompessons, the Clothiers, the Palphramonds and the Maliphants - as they circle and maneuver around a fortune being determined in Chancery, and several wills (and one codicil) competing to be found valid. John and his mother fall from comparative wealth to poverty and eventual destitution before the prospect of his inheritance offers a change of fortune.

Style

The Quincunx was a surprise hit. The book is notable for its accurate and evocative portrayal of English life at the time, covering the breadth of society from the gentry to the poor and from provincial villages to metropolitan London and dealing with the eccentricities of Georgian English land law. Towards the end of the book it is revealed that the narrator may not be as objective as the reader probably assumes.

The book is deeply researched. For example, a crucial point in the plot is the timing of John Huffam's birth. This is indicated by reference to contemporary events such as the Ratcliff Highway murders, the Great Comet of 1811 , Wellington's capture of Ciudad Rodrigo, and the passing of the Rose act determining how parish register entries should be made. On another level the hero's name hints that the author may have given him the same birth date as Charles John Huffam Dickens. The book includes extracts from Richard Horwood's 1813 map showing key locations in London -- but not of the country estate at Hougham, another key location.

Structure

The novel has a motif of the number five. It traces five related families over five generations. It is divided into five parts, each taking the name of one family (although the parts don't necessarily focus on the respective families). Each part is then divided into five books and each book is divided into five chapters. In most of the books there are four chapters of first-person narrative from John Huffam, with one chapter about other characters in a much more detached Dickensian tone, very similar to the way Esther Summerson's narratives are alternated with other's stories in Bleak House.

At the beginning of each book five quatrefoil roses from the relevant family's arms are displayed. These then reappear as a count of one to five roses at the start of each chapter. At the end of the book there are five "quincunx" arrangements of five roses each, showing all five families' devices. Palliser has pointed out ^[1] that the pattern of narration in the book - John Huffam, an omniscient narrator and a third person - exactly matches the colour pattern - white, black and red - of the elements of the design. The pattern also becomes an important visual clue later in the book, when a code of a sort must be broken using the heraldry as a guide.

Five parts of five books of five chapters each makes 125 chapters of this slowly unfurling story. The patterns continue, as at the very central chapter in the book, which is the 63rd one, the third story of the third book of the third part, there are five subsections, and what is revealed there, if the reader is perceptive, will make the plot clearer at the end of the book. (Palliser leaves it to the reader to figure out one key fact, which John Huffam only alludes to obliquely in the last few pages.)

At the end of each large "part" of 25 chapters, a partially revealed family tree is given, showing the parts that John Huffam has figured out, and some characters are shown on the tree who do not yet have a known connection to the family, but are displayed later.

Awards

Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction 1991

References

External links

• Forum (over 50,000 words of discussion): http://www.snarkout.org/seven/000827.php
• More details regarding the book, and especially plots: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/gix/quincunx/index

• J. Hillis Miller: Parody as Revisionary Critique: Charles Palliser’s The Quincunx

• José Ángel García Landa: Charles Palliser Bibliography (Word document; in A Bibliography of Literary Theory, Criticism and Philology)