Preview of The Avignon Quintet Summary:

Informing The Avignon Quintet, as theme, form, structure, and source of image and symbol, is the notion of the quincunx, the arrangement of five objects in a square, one at each corner and one in the middle. The most obvious quincunxial arrangement in the work is the familiar planting pattern of trees in a quincunx, an arrangement, as announced in Monsieur, which will provide the key to the lost Templar treasure. There are numerous allusions to the quincunx throughout the books, including quincunxial aspects of character, art, and architecture. The Avignon Quintet itself is, of course, a quincunx, five novels, with Monsieur at the center.

Finally, in Quinx, when readers learn that the lost Templar treasure is buried in the quincunxial caves beneath the Pont du Gard, they are told that "in architecture the quincunxial shape was considered a sort of housing for the divine power — a...