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Austrian Trilogy #1
Human Traces, Part 1
A fateful seaside meeting sets two young men on a profound course of friendship and discovery in the burgeoning field of psychiatry. But years later the two men's conflicting diagnosis threatens to undermine them.
10 pages, Audio Cassette
First published August 29, 2005
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About the author
Sebastian Faulks
59 books2,566 followersSebastian Faulks is a British novelist, journalist, and broadcaster best known for his acclaimed historical novels set in France, including The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong, and Charlotte Gray. Alongside these, he has written contemporary fiction, a James Bond continuation novel (Devil May Care), and a Jeeves homage (Jeeves and the Wedding Bells). A former literary editor and journalist, Faulks gained widespread recognition with Birdsong, which solidified his literary reputation. He has also appeared regularly on British media, notably as a team captain on BBC Radio 4's The Write Stuff, and authored the TV tie-in Faulks on Fiction. Honored as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and appointed CBE for his services to literature, Faulks continues to publish widely, with The Seventh Son released in 2023.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 473 reviews
March 30, 2011
A difficult book to rate and review. Parts of it were sublime; the rest tedious and didactic. If it had been 250 pages shorter it would have been outstanding. As it stands, the beginning (full of hope) and the end (full of despair) were worth the read. I cried twice in this book: at the beauty of the opening pages and the pathos of the closing pages. It's a pity that the middle was such heavy going.
Obviously authors who've already made their name are allowed to ignore basic writing rules such as "show, don't tell". That's fine when it works but in this book, Faulks appears to take the easy way out and at times his "telling" ran into 22 consecutive pages with the occasional token "Thomas stood up" or "Thomas said" to break the monotony. (What was his editor thinking in letting these sections stand?!!?)
In addition, there were a few plot hooks that didn't lead anywhere. For example, the mysterious archivist in the lunatic asylum. The end hook of chapter VII was the dramatic announcement "My name, too, you see, is Midwinter". I was left wondering throughout the remaining 400 pages what the dramatic connection was to Dr Thomas Midwinter. But as this was neither concluded nor developed, I was frustrated. So why the emphasis?
Sometimes pretentious in language;at other times lecturing in tone, this book was still inhabited by marvellous characterisations throughout. Ultimately, it was a brave attempt at fictionalising a philosophy on what it is to be human that didn't quite work. The conclusion that the book brings one to is that to be human is to despair; hope is not an option because in the greater scheme of the universe to be human is to be insignificant. I prefer books that offer a less nihilistic view of our human experience.
Obviously authors who've already made their name are allowed to ignore basic writing rules such as "show, don't tell". That's fine when it works but in this book, Faulks appears to take the easy way out and at times his "telling" ran into 22 consecutive pages with the occasional token "Thomas stood up" or "Thomas said" to break the monotony. (What was his editor thinking in letting these sections stand?!!?)
In addition, there were a few plot hooks that didn't lead anywhere. For example, the mysterious archivist in the lunatic asylum. The end hook of chapter VII was the dramatic announcement "My name, too, you see, is Midwinter". I was left wondering throughout the remaining 400 pages what the dramatic connection was to Dr Thomas Midwinter. But as this was neither concluded nor developed, I was frustrated. So why the emphasis?
Sometimes pretentious in language;at other times lecturing in tone, this book was still inhabited by marvellous characterisations throughout. Ultimately, it was a brave attempt at fictionalising a philosophy on what it is to be human that didn't quite work. The conclusion that the book brings one to is that to be human is to despair; hope is not an option because in the greater scheme of the universe to be human is to be insignificant. I prefer books that offer a less nihilistic view of our human experience.
January 13, 2013
Human Traces is a a huge and ambitious novel, which aims to explore the development of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and neurology in the late 19th and early 20th century. It took Sebastian Faulks five years to write, and involved spending hundreds of hours on research and creating charts and timelines to keep track of events and characters.
The novel begins in the 1876, with the introduction of the two protagonists - Jacques Rebiere and Thomas Midwinter. They are both 16 years old, and although separated by social status, language and land, they both undergo personal experiences which make them wish to become doctors. Jacques is a poor boy living in rural France, forced to abandon his education and an early age and work in the villages to support his family. Jacques is fascinated with anatomy and dissects frogs in his spare time, drawing detailed illustrations. But what he most wishes for is to understand madness: he wishes to be able to cure his brother, Olivier, who succumbed into it and is forced to live locked in the stable, shackled to the wall. Oliver was the last person to have seen their mother, as she died shortly after giving birth to Jacques. Their father refuses to talk about his late wife, and Jacques sees in Oliver the only chance to learn anything about her.
In England, Thomas Midwinter dreams to study Shakespeare andbelieves that literature allows for understanding of humanity. For Thomas, literature deepens the perceivement of emotions and heightens one's awareness of being alive. He is met with scorn from his father, who is experiencing financial troubles and is forced to arrange a marriage for Thomas's sister, Sonia. It is Sonia who advises Thomas to study medicine, as itwill also allow him to study the nature of humanity...and guarantee a respectable income.
These early sections show Faulks at his very best; they're compelling and evocative. full of humanity and wonder. Although the hardships which Jacques faces are overwhelming, he never gives up: his devotion to knowledge and understanding is admirable and beautifully shown, and his love for his brother and the mother he never saw compensates for all sacrifices. Thomas is forced to abandon his dreams of studying literature, like his sister is forced to enter into marriage; both will have to shape their lives this way and not the other because of the place and time they were born in. When the lives of Jacques and Thomas intersect, both discover that the other shares the same fascination: both pledge to pursue further understanding of the human condition and all that comes with it, and eventually set up their own clinic. With time, each begins to form a different hypothesis: Jacques believes that traumatic experiences at a young age can are the cause of madness and schizophrenia, while Thomas remains a strict naturalist and believes that mental and physical problems are genetic.
This is fascinating material, and the novel promises to be a wonderful experience. Sally Vickers in The Times compared it to works by Balzac, Stendhal and Mann, praising its scope and ambition - the novel's canvas encompasses three continents. It spans several decades and generations, and is victorian in its lenght and drama: from sweeping love affairs to tragic death, journeys to faraway lands and even war and its tragedy, all this with exploration of scientific, religious and philosophical themes.
Yet, as a novel, it is greatly flawed. The main sin it commits against the art of storytelling is the sheer amount of exposition: after the brilliant opening it lapses into a display of its impressive background research, with the characters becoming little more than speakers for the author who illustrate his points; several chapters are devoted to long and academic discussion over the nature of mental illness, and in one chapter a whole lecture is transcribed from beginning to end. These chapters could have been edited and shortened to a portion of their lenght; the pace and dramatic impact of the narrative would greatly gain from such treatment. Likewise, the portions of the novel set in Africa and California seem to be more of a recounting of the research that went into writing them than genuine parts of the storyline; the plot starts looking as if the story was so framed to fit the background research - which would explain several improbable coincidences - than the research resulting from the nature of the story and the characters which populate it, moving very linearly and mostly predictably and perfunctorily. It's as if the sheer amount of ideas was too large for its canvas, forcing Faulks to cut his characterization short in order to present psychoanalysis and psychiatry with the attention and detail he felt it deserved.
The novel shines with insividual sequences - descriptions of mental asylums and the patients within them are haunting and effective, with one feeling their squalor and despair - but on the whole the plot and character interactions feel scripted, the novel's world tailored only to present its themes and not allowed to evolve and live on its own. Still, despite these factors it's not a failure: it is an intelligent work, and the author's devotion to the subject and representation of science from that period, with its many doubts but also enormous promise, is to be acknowleged and praised. The novel begins to regain the opening grandeur as it nears towards the end, with events which I found bitterly ironic and deeply saddening. The end of Human Traces is powerful and sublime, written in passages echoing with quiet beauty. It's almost cathartic in effect, purifying the artificual plot with truly human emotions; I closed the book forgiving it its flawed and weak parts, being glad that I was able to experience the strong and beautiful.
The novel begins in the 1876, with the introduction of the two protagonists - Jacques Rebiere and Thomas Midwinter. They are both 16 years old, and although separated by social status, language and land, they both undergo personal experiences which make them wish to become doctors. Jacques is a poor boy living in rural France, forced to abandon his education and an early age and work in the villages to support his family. Jacques is fascinated with anatomy and dissects frogs in his spare time, drawing detailed illustrations. But what he most wishes for is to understand madness: he wishes to be able to cure his brother, Olivier, who succumbed into it and is forced to live locked in the stable, shackled to the wall. Oliver was the last person to have seen their mother, as she died shortly after giving birth to Jacques. Their father refuses to talk about his late wife, and Jacques sees in Oliver the only chance to learn anything about her.
In England, Thomas Midwinter dreams to study Shakespeare andbelieves that literature allows for understanding of humanity. For Thomas, literature deepens the perceivement of emotions and heightens one's awareness of being alive. He is met with scorn from his father, who is experiencing financial troubles and is forced to arrange a marriage for Thomas's sister, Sonia. It is Sonia who advises Thomas to study medicine, as itwill also allow him to study the nature of humanity...and guarantee a respectable income.
These early sections show Faulks at his very best; they're compelling and evocative. full of humanity and wonder. Although the hardships which Jacques faces are overwhelming, he never gives up: his devotion to knowledge and understanding is admirable and beautifully shown, and his love for his brother and the mother he never saw compensates for all sacrifices. Thomas is forced to abandon his dreams of studying literature, like his sister is forced to enter into marriage; both will have to shape their lives this way and not the other because of the place and time they were born in. When the lives of Jacques and Thomas intersect, both discover that the other shares the same fascination: both pledge to pursue further understanding of the human condition and all that comes with it, and eventually set up their own clinic. With time, each begins to form a different hypothesis: Jacques believes that traumatic experiences at a young age can are the cause of madness and schizophrenia, while Thomas remains a strict naturalist and believes that mental and physical problems are genetic.
This is fascinating material, and the novel promises to be a wonderful experience. Sally Vickers in The Times compared it to works by Balzac, Stendhal and Mann, praising its scope and ambition - the novel's canvas encompasses three continents. It spans several decades and generations, and is victorian in its lenght and drama: from sweeping love affairs to tragic death, journeys to faraway lands and even war and its tragedy, all this with exploration of scientific, religious and philosophical themes.
Yet, as a novel, it is greatly flawed. The main sin it commits against the art of storytelling is the sheer amount of exposition: after the brilliant opening it lapses into a display of its impressive background research, with the characters becoming little more than speakers for the author who illustrate his points; several chapters are devoted to long and academic discussion over the nature of mental illness, and in one chapter a whole lecture is transcribed from beginning to end. These chapters could have been edited and shortened to a portion of their lenght; the pace and dramatic impact of the narrative would greatly gain from such treatment. Likewise, the portions of the novel set in Africa and California seem to be more of a recounting of the research that went into writing them than genuine parts of the storyline; the plot starts looking as if the story was so framed to fit the background research - which would explain several improbable coincidences - than the research resulting from the nature of the story and the characters which populate it, moving very linearly and mostly predictably and perfunctorily. It's as if the sheer amount of ideas was too large for its canvas, forcing Faulks to cut his characterization short in order to present psychoanalysis and psychiatry with the attention and detail he felt it deserved.
The novel shines with insividual sequences - descriptions of mental asylums and the patients within them are haunting and effective, with one feeling their squalor and despair - but on the whole the plot and character interactions feel scripted, the novel's world tailored only to present its themes and not allowed to evolve and live on its own. Still, despite these factors it's not a failure: it is an intelligent work, and the author's devotion to the subject and representation of science from that period, with its many doubts but also enormous promise, is to be acknowleged and praised. The novel begins to regain the opening grandeur as it nears towards the end, with events which I found bitterly ironic and deeply saddening. The end of Human Traces is powerful and sublime, written in passages echoing with quiet beauty. It's almost cathartic in effect, purifying the artificual plot with truly human emotions; I closed the book forgiving it its flawed and weak parts, being glad that I was able to experience the strong and beautiful.
August 16, 2022
Shakespeare drew a new map of the human mind as clearly as Newton mapped the heavens. Why is one considered science and the other fit only to be mocked with jokes about pretty girls and Drury Lane?
It turns out that a fiction writer is much better at explaining science to me than a renowned psychiatrist. I read earlier this year an autobiography of Irving Yalom, who bored me to death with irrelevant details about his private life and failed to provide a clear image of the basis of his beliefs. Well, except for one detail that has relevance to the present novel: Mr Yalom has become convinced early in his celebrated career that writers and philosophers have as much to say about the way the human mind works as scientists and psychotherapists.
I knew already that Sebastian Faulks is a great storyteller. What I didn’t really expect was that he would help me map the early developments in the study of the human brain with such clarity, with such passion and with such compassion.
“You see, I have this idea that we must somehow try to understand the meeting point between thought and flesh. That is what the next great aim and discovery of medical science will be. Are you with me?”
Starting in the late Victorian Era, with two children driven by curiosity to understand the world surrounding them, the progress of science is overlaid by the personal lives of these two boys, following their struggles to understand and treat madness until the time of their retirement more than five decades later.
The novel should have been heavy with the research material included in the text, but I burned through the pages with unexpected swiftness, captivated both by the slow, tentative and fraught with errors progress in the science and by the personal, emotional journey through life of the two doctors with their families and friends.
I can understand how many readers might find the novel overlong and even difficult when the usual plot is replaced by very long dissertations about the workings of the brain. My own fascination with the subject and my admiration for the way mr. Faulks likes to tell a story prompt me to add this book among my personal favourites.
>>><<<>>><<<
He is just like me, but completely different at the same time. He has had all the same thoughts yet they have come from a different life, a different world. It’s like two men bumping into each other in the jungle when one started in Iceland and one in China – and finding they are reading the same book.
Before becoming a book about science, the novel is a story about friendship, and about love and about a life well lived.
Thomas Midwinter is born in England, in a relatively wealthy family who has a countryside manor and a moderately successful business. An adventurous child with a passion for poetry, Thomas is advised by an older sister named Sonia, to seek a career in medicine.
Jacques Rebiere grows up in a poor region of Bretagne, with an abusive and indifferent father and without a mother, who dies giving birth to him. Thomas has an older brother named Olivier who manifests signs of schizophrenia as a teenager and lives chained to a wall in a barn. With some help from the local priest and driven by a desire to help his brother, Jacques begins to study biology and medicine.
Years later, when both Thomas and Jacques are students of medicine, they meet in Deauville on a holiday with Sonia. They recognize each other as kindred souls, and make a vow by the ocean, under the stars, to dedicate their lives to understanding how the brain works.
Over the years, their journey will take them from an insane asylum in England, to the conference halls of the Salpetriere in Paris and finally to a private clinic in Austria, with detours into California, Germany, Central Africa and many other places of study. Families and children, professional successes and defeats, world wars and economic strife will only be the background against which their life mission unfolds.
Thomas had a moment of despair, as he always had when seeing madness en masse, a sense of trying to empty the sea with a bucket.
The period of study chosen by the author is not accidental. It starts with early efforts to help those afflicted by mental illness by gathering them together from families and into asylums where they can be provided with help and studied scientifically. Among the many names and studies mentioned here is one Samuel Tuke, a pioneer of care that replaced punishment with kindness and understanding for the less fortunate among us.
It was curious, he had to admit, that the first medicine was not a herbal preparation or a surgical procedure, but simple kindness.
The next step is to classify and describe the nature of the illness, and in this area a prominent place is given to Jean Martin Charcot, whose presentations in Paris are attended by both Thomas and Jacques. His theories about the physical nature of mental illness [the flesh] will be later challenged and put in perspective by later students.
The move to Austria and the focus on what will become known as psychotherapy is a logical step for the two young doctors as they continue to search for the elusive link between the mind and the flesh.
Nihil humanum sibi puto alienum esse
There is little difference between a doctor and an artist. Both try to understand what it means to be human. Both are prone to passions and insecurities, to valuable insights and to following wrong paths. Thomas and Jacques work together, but follow different paths and slightly different methods in their studies: Thomas the poet seems more interested in the way genetics play a role in causing the brain cells to misfire, while Jacques becomes focused on the study of dreams and childhood trauma. Thomas, who loves Shakespeare and is not adverse to Bible interpretations, can identify clues in old myths and clerical texts, even in fossil footprints from millions of years ago. Jacques gets carried away by the promises of a universal key to unlock the human mind provided by the new guru of the salons in Vienna.
Jacques and he had not been able to cure madness, so they had fabricated something that they could cure.
The two main directions of study are made clear with the help of two actual cases:
- For Thomas the schizophrenia of Olivier, still unabated after three decades of illness
- For Jacques the treatment of a young woman who presents symptoms of childhood trauma manifesting as physical illness.
I am grossly simplifying the journey here, bypassing many intermediary stages and numerous secondary characters that are important either in the medical studies and in the personal lives of the doctors. But it helps me put my thoughts about the novel in order, even if it does a disservice to the five years of work the author put into this novel.
>>><<<>>><<<
First, the Thomas approach:
“One day, this instability may regulate itself through successful transmutation. Until then, I do not see men like Olivier as being degenerate or retarded; I see them rather as at the forefront, in the vanguard of what it means to be human.”
“But they suffer,” said Franz.
“My god, they suffer. I think they suffer for all of us. It is almost as though they bear the burden of our sins. It is scarcely too much to say that they pay the price for the rest of us to be human.”
The first step is to separate the amorphous mass of madness into categories. Oliver’s illness was named hebephrenia in the early days, before being lumped together with general schizophrenia. Thomas had few tools available for his studies in those early days, relying mostly on post-mortem microscope studies of brain tissue and on extensive reading into the contemporary papers. His conclusions are speculative at best and with few practical applications, but I found the way he connects religion and literature to the problem to be captivating.
“If we are right about the hereditary nature of schizophrenia, then perhaps we can breed it out of the population, as we breed Jersey cows, tea roses or greyhounds. On the other hand, if it is as closely linked as we believe to the combination of genes that give us our human capacities, it can never be eradicated. You would have to annihilate the whole of humanity.”
Of even greater interest is the way Thomas can express the limitations of the scientific method in a way that proves this to be its greatest asset:
“So Mr. Darwin was right about one thing and wrong about another.”
“Yes. That is the nature of science. [...]”
“And does that apply to you as well, my love? That you will not get everything right?”
“Yes. The two-step-forward-one-step-back law of scientific discovery will take care of that. And the limits of the human mind.”
... and the way he speaks respectfully of religion without renouncing his basic humanism:
“Will you be able to do all this without recourse to God? Is He not more likely to provide the answers than hereditary processes we cannot understand and instruments that have not been invented?”
“That has traditionally been His role – the guardian of mysteries. But He is a costive and niggardly keeper. He does not give up any secrets. Humans unriddle them all for themselves. When we have answered the last question, we will have no more need to dignify our ignorance with the name of ‘God’.”
>>><<<>>><<<
Jacques tries to embrace psychoanalysis as an early adopter and ends up underlining the limitations of the method right from its inception:
Small truths, homely facts, when they are applied to the world as representative of all the world, cease to be facts and become superstitions. Thus has this little thought become elevated, made sacrosanct and set to work as a dogma in a school of ‘medicine’...
I find it extremely relevant that the name Freud is not mentioned a single time in the novel, while that of his contemporary Wilhelm Fliess is given a direct role in the plot. My own reservations about Freud are in this way amply confirmed by mr. Faulks. I will leave the actual details of the harm that can be done by a too strict adherence to a fanciful theory that tries to extrapolate from a few individual cases to the whole range of human mental processes to those readers who are patient enough to follow the arguments in the novel.
>>><<<>>>
What else can I add here? Sebastian Faulks has a keen sense for the historical background that animates his fictional characters and anchors them in well known events like the First World War, the early days of the California boom, a mountaintop sanatory in Carinthia or a memorable journey to the Great Rift Valley.
He also has a balanced approach to the role the women played in the lives of these doctors driven by science. Sofia Midwinter in particular has as strong, as important a presence in the economy of the novel as Thomas or Jacques. From a constricted, much abused Victorian maiden who is refused an education and forced to marry a man not of her own choosing, she manages to carve for herself a full and interesting life beside the two most important men in her life.
I have kept the last quote as a way to underline that even a life that ends in defeat is worth living, if you learn to look upon its hard earned moments of grace.
I must pull in sail and lower my sights from the horizon. I am quite content to do so because I have been so fortunate in my life.
September 2, 2021
Story of two men from around 1870 to 1920 - Jacques Rebiere (an unschooled but bright Breton from a poor, rural background, haunted by the death of his mother at his birth and determined to find a cure for his mad brother Oliver - not least so he can tell him more of their mother - with the sponsorship of a local priest he studies medicine) and Thomas Midwinter (youngest son of a comfortable but struggling English family and interested in literature, whose sister Sonia – initially married to an eventually failed businessman to protect the family interests – convinces him to go into medicine so he can understand more about his interest which is what it means to be human).
In a rather improbable scenario the two meet in France and in an all night conversation (in which Thomas learns to speak French) inspire each other to work together in their future lives to attempt to unlock the secrets of the human mind, including setting up a clinic together once they have both trained.
Thomas after Cambridge works in a lunatic asylum where he realises that modern medicine is now in the stage of warehousing lunatics together (after stages of wandering madmen, believes of possession, asylums as entertainments) but has abandoned much hope of a cure. He is friendly with two patients – Daisy and a blind girl Mary. Jacques learns his medicine in Paris and studies under Charcot a historical person who believed hysteria to be connected to the sub-conscious and proved this by hypnotising patients.
Sonia is divorced by her husband after his business fails (in exchange for a final loan from her father) and marries Jacques, they all move to Paris and then just as Jacques receives his doctorate are funded by the mysterious millionaire patron of a painter whose family Thomas is asked to accompany on a European trip, to set up an clinic in the alpine foothills and then over time in the mountains (by aid of a cable car) where they can practice their ideas and theories. Daisy, Mary and Oliver all join them (Oliver suffering from voices in his head – what eventually as the book progresses gets categorised as schizophrenia - eventually commits suicide).
The two Doctors take different paths which rather than, as they had planned converging on some grand theory, diverge. Jacques pursues a Freudian (although Freud is strangely never mentioned) view that much illness (mental and physical) is caused by suppressed childhood trauma. Thomas (with whom the author clearly sympathises) with the idea of evolutionary psychology – and postulates a theory that the ability to hear voices was what initially gave what became modern humans their breakthrough from other competing (sub)species by enabling them to start a more organised society and that this was connected to the development of an asymmetrical brain but that this ability was lost in most people as formal written language was developed but remains in the brain as an evolutionary inheritance and failure in a section of the population which in most extreme form leads to mental illness. He believes that the Greek fables and the Old Testament trace the decline of the ability/disposition to hear voices.
Jacques failure to diagnose the cyst and rheumatic fever of a patient Kitty (who Thomas goes on to marry) leads to a rift between the two which is never properly healed, although both get frustrated as time goes on that they have failed in their aims.
There early narrative, particularly the opening of Jacques upbringing, is powerful and very well written.
There are a number of sub-narratives: Jacques in America to see cable cars in operation; Thomas in Africa tracing early humans and developing his theory; Jacques and Sonia’s son in the First World War (in a “Birdsong” like section) which actually function almost separately from the rest of the book.
However very large parts of the book consist of exposition of the author’s research – in two cases as very long (20+ pages) verbatim lectures from Jacques and Thomas outlining their respective grand theories.
This makes the book an uneasy mix of fiction and non-fiction but still was actually very well written and an enjoyable if (at times) difficult read.
In a rather improbable scenario the two meet in France and in an all night conversation (in which Thomas learns to speak French) inspire each other to work together in their future lives to attempt to unlock the secrets of the human mind, including setting up a clinic together once they have both trained.
Thomas after Cambridge works in a lunatic asylum where he realises that modern medicine is now in the stage of warehousing lunatics together (after stages of wandering madmen, believes of possession, asylums as entertainments) but has abandoned much hope of a cure. He is friendly with two patients – Daisy and a blind girl Mary. Jacques learns his medicine in Paris and studies under Charcot a historical person who believed hysteria to be connected to the sub-conscious and proved this by hypnotising patients.
Sonia is divorced by her husband after his business fails (in exchange for a final loan from her father) and marries Jacques, they all move to Paris and then just as Jacques receives his doctorate are funded by the mysterious millionaire patron of a painter whose family Thomas is asked to accompany on a European trip, to set up an clinic in the alpine foothills and then over time in the mountains (by aid of a cable car) where they can practice their ideas and theories. Daisy, Mary and Oliver all join them (Oliver suffering from voices in his head – what eventually as the book progresses gets categorised as schizophrenia - eventually commits suicide).
The two Doctors take different paths which rather than, as they had planned converging on some grand theory, diverge. Jacques pursues a Freudian (although Freud is strangely never mentioned) view that much illness (mental and physical) is caused by suppressed childhood trauma. Thomas (with whom the author clearly sympathises) with the idea of evolutionary psychology – and postulates a theory that the ability to hear voices was what initially gave what became modern humans their breakthrough from other competing (sub)species by enabling them to start a more organised society and that this was connected to the development of an asymmetrical brain but that this ability was lost in most people as formal written language was developed but remains in the brain as an evolutionary inheritance and failure in a section of the population which in most extreme form leads to mental illness. He believes that the Greek fables and the Old Testament trace the decline of the ability/disposition to hear voices.
Jacques failure to diagnose the cyst and rheumatic fever of a patient Kitty (who Thomas goes on to marry) leads to a rift between the two which is never properly healed, although both get frustrated as time goes on that they have failed in their aims.
There early narrative, particularly the opening of Jacques upbringing, is powerful and very well written.
There are a number of sub-narratives: Jacques in America to see cable cars in operation; Thomas in Africa tracing early humans and developing his theory; Jacques and Sonia’s son in the First World War (in a “Birdsong” like section) which actually function almost separately from the rest of the book.
However very large parts of the book consist of exposition of the author’s research – in two cases as very long (20+ pages) verbatim lectures from Jacques and Thomas outlining their respective grand theories.
This makes the book an uneasy mix of fiction and non-fiction but still was actually very well written and an enjoyable if (at times) difficult read.
February 14, 2010
This is an absolutely fascinating book that weaves medicine, travel, psychology, paeleo-anthropology, religion, evolution, history, literature - and probably a few more things besides - into the tale of the sometimes strained relationships between two fallible people from very different backgrounds. Thomas' theory to explain the existence and continuation of the apparantly maladaptive trait of hearing voices is a masterly synthesis that is intriguingly credible: even though I know that it would probably not stand up to rigorous investigation it has a coherence and elegance that makes me wish it were true. I can see that the lectures and case notes through which this and other theories are expounded might put off readers who are less intrigued by the subject matter and that there are some rather melodramatic interludes and broadly-sketched characters but even so, the ideas and the feel of this book will stay with me for a long time and so it gets full marks.
August 25, 2010
Oh dear. This is one of the most unfortunate books I've read in quite some time. Sebastian Faulks has a name in popular historical fiction and Human Traces, which seemed to promise a fascinating tale of two 19th century pioneers of psychiatry - a subject I have a strong interest in - gave me high hopes for a quality read. It is clear that Faulks is a functional writer who knows how to construct a novel, but while the subject has obviously been meticulously researched I found the prose somewhat bland - even dull. Our view into the subject of mental healthcare is quite interesting - but that stands in strong contrast to the characters, which largely lack life and dimension. The narrative is increasing boring as the book progresses, and one becomes frustrated with a group of characters who seem little more than mannequins which gesture feebly to historical observations. Ultimately, the story really goes nowhere and there is a lack of any kind of satisfying conclusion, or enlightenment about its subject. As if Faulks himself grew bored of the book, an ill-fitting sub-plot relating to the Great War is shoehorned in towards the end, and while this was more engaging than the rest of the story, it is a case of far too little and far too late. At 609 pages, perhaps this story would have worked better had it been half its length. I couldn't recommend this novel to anyone.
June 17, 2011
On the whole I enjoyed this; it was a wide scope, from the 1860s to the 1920s and ranges across Europe the US and Africa. It tells the story of two men, Thomas Midwinter and Jacques Rebiere and their dreams of working out how the human mind functions and solving the problem of madness. There are lengthy descriptions of nineteenth century psychiatry and the development of some modern ideas with the theory of evolution and the human condition thrown in.
The book is at its strongest when dealing with human relationships; friendship, love, loss, betrayal and family. The beginning and end of the novel are particularly strong. The middle plodded a little and there are some overlong passages about anatomy and psychiatry which are superfluous. There are also a couple of plot lines which are not followed through which were intriguing, but left open. Not as good as Birdsong, in my opinion, but an epic novel dealing with life's mysteries with great sadness at the heart. The last paragraph is heart rending.
The book is at its strongest when dealing with human relationships; friendship, love, loss, betrayal and family. The beginning and end of the novel are particularly strong. The middle plodded a little and there are some overlong passages about anatomy and psychiatry which are superfluous. There are also a couple of plot lines which are not followed through which were intriguing, but left open. Not as good as Birdsong, in my opinion, but an epic novel dealing with life's mysteries with great sadness at the heart. The last paragraph is heart rending.
July 2, 2017
So I loved the heck out of Human Traces but I can recognize that the book won't be for all. The book is long, to reflect the biographical nature of it, but without a real of literary payoff, the subject matter is rather specific, and generally the story meanders (like life) again a reflection of the life story aspect.
The tale follows two men, Thomas and Jacques, who spend their professional lives focused on insanity, Thomas' approach is ever-medical and neurological and Jacques is a consummate psycho-analyst. The story covers many aspects of their journey, at times hyper focused on the nature of their work, at other times only briefly explaining their work to focus the microscope on their family. The tensions of the story are subtle rather than overt. It's not a story for those wanting dramatic conflicts and epic tension.
I confess my bias towards this book is probably obvious once explained, not only does an MC have the same name as me, the area of work is related to, and a scene where Thomas breaks down questioning the point of his work mirrors my own feelings to the point I almost felt like the book was 'for me.'
So if you're looking for a longer commitment to a story that won't necessarily take you on a Roller Coaster but a more intriguing and thoughtful journey this is definitely the book for you!
The tale follows two men, Thomas and Jacques, who spend their professional lives focused on insanity, Thomas' approach is ever-medical and neurological and Jacques is a consummate psycho-analyst. The story covers many aspects of their journey, at times hyper focused on the nature of their work, at other times only briefly explaining their work to focus the microscope on their family. The tensions of the story are subtle rather than overt. It's not a story for those wanting dramatic conflicts and epic tension.
I confess my bias towards this book is probably obvious once explained, not only does an MC have the same name as me, the area of work is related to, and a scene where Thomas breaks down questioning the point of his work mirrors my own feelings to the point I almost felt like the book was 'for me.'
So if you're looking for a longer commitment to a story that won't necessarily take you on a Roller Coaster but a more intriguing and thoughtful journey this is definitely the book for you!
December 10, 2021
Sebastian Faulks is a prolific writer, and Human Traces unmistakably comes from his stable of works. The brutality and horror of trench warfare (a Faulks staple), and a raw and raunchy, illicit, love affair are duly incorporated in the book. Its pure historical fiction, set between 1866 and 1920, as Faulks delves into the vigorous, and emerging debates and research taking place among neurologists and psychiatrists trying to determine causes of, and cures for, mental health ailments. Its a subject matter, and a time, in which European pioneers (especially in Germany) were prolific in their theories and theses.
Boy does Sebastian Faulks get wrapped up in the subject, and its very hard to dispute the charges levelled against this (609 page) novel, that it is too lengthy, and that fiction is too frequently abandoned for exposition. Unless you a specialist in the field its hard to be sure whether Faulks captures the essence of the arguments as debate raged. In the end book acknowledgements Faulks cites numerous reference books and admits that he had to break from his aversion to listing a bibliography in a work of fiction. Given the extent to which he immersed himself in the subject its not surprising that he feels this is an unfinished work of his.
What struck me about the renowned doctors and medics cited was threefold:
• Faulks is at pains not to mention Freud by name, and refers only to the “Viennese School”
• A significant number of the pioneers referenced in this time period, are so enduring that their names are attached to the science which has continued today, 150 years later. They include:
o Henry Maudsley (1835-1913), who founded his eponymous urban hospital for the mentally poor in 1907
o Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915) who identified the first published case of "presenile dementia"
o Gilles de la Tourette (1857-1904) whose main contributions in medicine were in the fields of hypnotism and hysteria
• The true giant of the era was Emil Kraepelin (1856 –1926). The father of psychiatric genetics, and the first investigator of manic depression; I'm surprised he is not more of a household name outside his profession.
Themes
We are going to show what makes us human (236)
What it means to love someone is to be everything. To bend all your powers to their happiness.
The load of being human (602)
Synopsis
Brother and sister Thomas and Sonia Midwinter become inextricably entwined with the Rebiere family, and especially Jacques and brother Olivier. The reader is taken on a bildungsroman account across forty years, from early adulthood, to (by today’s standards) early old age (turning sixty). Fraulein Katharina Von A (Kitty) is the other main character in the extended family providing a human element that offsets the science and medicine of the book. Providing the raunch is Roya Mikhailova
The book has a truly global reach in in various settings, from the Schloss Seeblick in Austria, to the Saltpetriere asylum in Paris, Ngorongoro in Tanzania, and via Pasadena in California, back to England. The Midwinter family home in Lincolnshire, Torrington, is a particularly impressive anchor at a time of great change and fluidity.
Questions
• I wonder if Faulks took any inspiration from F.Scott Fitzgerald’s < b> Tender is the Night . “I suspect that each of us may have a great moment in our life” (531). Kitty’s feeling for Thomas is reminiscent of Doctor Dick Diver, in a novel in which psychiatry and the Alps is also central to the story.
• Who is the archivist in the attic room “whose name is also Midwinter” ??
Author background & Reviews
Faulks has become a literary household name on the back of his fourth novel, Birdsong in 1993.
Theatre director Trevor Nunn, seemingly without any sense of hyperbole called Human Traces "A masterpiece, one of the great novels of this or any other century.”
Recommend
This isn’t a book to casually recommend, but for those who already have a declared interest in psychiatry, and the early years of care for the mentally ill in the nineteenth century it will be illuminating. A more accessible story is looking to escape from the sometimes verbose novel that got published. The next instalment is due imminently, after fifteen years, and in Snow Country , Martha Rebiere (twenty three at the end of Human Traces), picks up the threads.....
Boy does Sebastian Faulks get wrapped up in the subject, and its very hard to dispute the charges levelled against this (609 page) novel, that it is too lengthy, and that fiction is too frequently abandoned for exposition. Unless you a specialist in the field its hard to be sure whether Faulks captures the essence of the arguments as debate raged. In the end book acknowledgements Faulks cites numerous reference books and admits that he had to break from his aversion to listing a bibliography in a work of fiction. Given the extent to which he immersed himself in the subject its not surprising that he feels this is an unfinished work of his.
What struck me about the renowned doctors and medics cited was threefold:
• Faulks is at pains not to mention Freud by name, and refers only to the “Viennese School”
• A significant number of the pioneers referenced in this time period, are so enduring that their names are attached to the science which has continued today, 150 years later. They include:
o Henry Maudsley (1835-1913), who founded his eponymous urban hospital for the mentally poor in 1907
o Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915) who identified the first published case of "presenile dementia"
o Gilles de la Tourette (1857-1904) whose main contributions in medicine were in the fields of hypnotism and hysteria
• The true giant of the era was Emil Kraepelin (1856 –1926). The father of psychiatric genetics, and the first investigator of manic depression; I'm surprised he is not more of a household name outside his profession.
Themes
We are going to show what makes us human (236)
What it means to love someone is to be everything. To bend all your powers to their happiness.
The load of being human (602)
Synopsis
Brother and sister Thomas and Sonia Midwinter become inextricably entwined with the Rebiere family, and especially Jacques and brother Olivier. The reader is taken on a bildungsroman account across forty years, from early adulthood, to (by today’s standards) early old age (turning sixty). Fraulein Katharina Von A (Kitty) is the other main character in the extended family providing a human element that offsets the science and medicine of the book. Providing the raunch is Roya Mikhailova
The book has a truly global reach in in various settings, from the Schloss Seeblick in Austria, to the Saltpetriere asylum in Paris, Ngorongoro in Tanzania, and via Pasadena in California, back to England. The Midwinter family home in Lincolnshire, Torrington, is a particularly impressive anchor at a time of great change and fluidity.
Questions
• I wonder if Faulks took any inspiration from F.Scott Fitzgerald’s < b> Tender is the Night . “I suspect that each of us may have a great moment in our life” (531). Kitty’s feeling for Thomas is reminiscent of Doctor Dick Diver, in a novel in which psychiatry and the Alps is also central to the story.
• Who is the archivist in the attic room “whose name is also Midwinter” ??
Author background & Reviews
Faulks has become a literary household name on the back of his fourth novel, Birdsong in 1993.
Theatre director Trevor Nunn, seemingly without any sense of hyperbole called Human Traces "A masterpiece, one of the great novels of this or any other century.”
Recommend
This isn’t a book to casually recommend, but for those who already have a declared interest in psychiatry, and the early years of care for the mentally ill in the nineteenth century it will be illuminating. A more accessible story is looking to escape from the sometimes verbose novel that got published. The next instalment is due imminently, after fifteen years, and in Snow Country , Martha Rebiere (twenty three at the end of Human Traces), picks up the threads.....
May 5, 2020
I wanted to love this book, but by god it became hard going. From the first hundred pages it would get 4 stars.... The two main characters introduced as children at the beginning share a passion for striving to understand the human mind and mental illness. What follows is there life story. But by 300 pages in, the characters have become increasing dislikable. I had to give up by page 350 as it just seemed to stop progressing, after many pages of notes about a patient where Jacques (one of the main character) shows such a lack of understanding that it is infuriating and beyond belief. Luckily the other characters agreed that he had lost his way, but what follows, where he could have been confront, is so lack lustre that it leaves you wondering what the point is.
Faulks can be such a good story teller, but this become less of a story and more or a detailed exploration of the history of mental disease and treatments. The characters, and even any plot line, just seems to lack any substance.
Faulks can be such a good story teller, but this become less of a story and more or a detailed exploration of the history of mental disease and treatments. The characters, and even any plot line, just seems to lack any substance.
November 3, 2011
i was stuck in the airport in dublin waiting for my flight to new york, without any reading material (the horror!!). thus, i picked this out of the meager selections the airport store had. they were featuring Faulks, as an Irish British author. i was skeptical (i hadn't ever heard of him before). but i loved this book -- partially because i like complex philosophical/psychological/scientific ruminations, and this book had plenty of that. it's as if he was trying to answer the question of "what is the meaning of life and consciousness" but at the same time managed to create a compelling character story, with an interesting plot. i highly recommend.
July 22, 2007
Great characters with captivating storylines and incredible backdrops from gruesome Victorian asylums to mountains of Switzerland to African deserts - but too educative to make an enjoyable and satisfying read. It reads like a deliberate attempt at the construction of a story around the history and theories of psychology, I'm not sure that characters or plot necessarily came first which is maybe why the book plods a little.
February 3, 2013
I'm on page 638 of 787 of Human Traces: Really enjoying this book, a fictional story based around fact and the early stages of attempts to understand mental illness and psychosis; the beginnings of psychiatry and psychology. It offers a fascinating, insightful, as well as beautifully-articulated understanding of the origins of such 'illnesses', drawing together various schools of thought and much of the scientific theory we have come to understand as providing the most sensible (and sensical) explanation for our amazing human abilities; natural selection, evolution, heredity, and these linked to the physical structures and assymetry of function of the brain as we know it and the (then) unknown 'physical units of inheritance' - the chromosomes, genes and allelles themselves. This is intertwined with the life story of two men, their personal and professional struggles and their drive to uncover the mystery of mental illness, suffused with drama, love and the reality of life and death.
November 22, 2013
The amount of research Sebastian Faulks clearly does into his chosen subject matter leaves many, if not most, authors in the dust. This gives his writing a certain intelligence and a well-informed feel, but it does also have its flaws. Chiefly, that his books are over long. I felt this with Birdsong and again here with Human Traces. Don't get me wrong, the subject matter was fascinating - and admittedly horrifying in places - but by the time I got to page 400 my interest had largely died and I didn't really reconnect until the last 30 or so pages. It's not that anything felt particularly redundant. This is, after all, the life's work of two men. You would expect it to be a bit of an epic. But I did feel as though bits could've been trimmed without losing anything. For example, the construction of the railway. A page or two would have sufficed. It's as though Faulks didn't want to leave the tiniest bit of research out.
I had been thinking that the length was going to kill Human Traces for me. But I'd forgotten that if there's one thing Faulks does particularly well, it is his endings. No mess of loose ends. No avoiding a conclusion (because somehow that makes a piece "high brow"). No stinting on emotion. I cried (in the middle of the library, bit embarrassing that!) and promptly forgave him all his over enthusiasm for cable cars. The man writes a beautiful finale.
I had been thinking that the length was going to kill Human Traces for me. But I'd forgotten that if there's one thing Faulks does particularly well, it is his endings. No mess of loose ends. No avoiding a conclusion (because somehow that makes a piece "high brow"). No stinting on emotion. I cried (in the middle of the library, bit embarrassing that!) and promptly forgave him all his over enthusiasm for cable cars. The man writes a beautiful finale.
August 9, 2014
A slow, academic but impressively ambitious novel with meticulous research into the story of 19th century psychiatry. This is a sweeping 2-generation saga, mostly set in Europe, about 2 friends who at the turn of the century pursue psychiatry (for different reasons) & become lifelong partners. Their quest is to understand madness, the evolution of the brain and what makes us human.
This story was not as compelling as 'Birdsong,' and it fact it got a little turgid in the middle. As with the latter, though, Faulks makes us revisit the horrors and futility of WWI, and like Birdsong, there's a bit of tasteful eroticism to spice up much idealism and philosophical debate. For me the characters, especially the women, and the relationships are overly idealised, but I'm learning that this probably reflects the author's own compassion.
Memorable for me was the description of the lunatics' Ball in the awful Victorian asylum; Faulks describes scenes which are almost burlesque and in so doing questions the boundaries of sanity/insanity, as he does throughout the novel.
In the end, as Thomas succumbs to Alzheimers, and when Jacques does not succeed in reclaiming his childhood through avant-garde surgery, we conclude that the search to understand the human brain, played out in two lives of striving to alleviate mental suffering, remains elusive.
This story was not as compelling as 'Birdsong,' and it fact it got a little turgid in the middle. As with the latter, though, Faulks makes us revisit the horrors and futility of WWI, and like Birdsong, there's a bit of tasteful eroticism to spice up much idealism and philosophical debate. For me the characters, especially the women, and the relationships are overly idealised, but I'm learning that this probably reflects the author's own compassion.
Memorable for me was the description of the lunatics' Ball in the awful Victorian asylum; Faulks describes scenes which are almost burlesque and in so doing questions the boundaries of sanity/insanity, as he does throughout the novel.
In the end, as Thomas succumbs to Alzheimers, and when Jacques does not succeed in reclaiming his childhood through avant-garde surgery, we conclude that the search to understand the human brain, played out in two lives of striving to alleviate mental suffering, remains elusive.
February 8, 2019
The final four pages of this book almost make up for the detours into the history of psychiatry. Lots to think about in this long and heavy book. Where was the editor? We continue to ask the same questions about the treatment and cure of mental illness. We are still floundering. Years from now we will look back at the accepted best practice for schizophrenia and shake our heads asking can you believe that was considered helpful. Perhaps it is enough, as one patient reminded Thomas, to help those as gently as you can and to truly do no harm.
February 28, 2012
Cardboard 19th-century psychiatric folk plod through 600 pages of stodgy research.
September 2, 2025
When two young students meet on holiday in Deauville, they discover they share a passion for the study of the human mind. Thomas Midwinter is from a background of moderate privilege, persuaded by his sister Sonia to study medicine. Jacques Rebière’s family is poor, and his brother, Olivier, is 'mad' – he is kept in the stables with the horse. Jacques is driven by his desire to find a proper diagnosis and cure for Olivier, and he is helped by the local Abbé, who funds his education. The two young men agree that when they finish their studies they will open a clinic for the treatment of the mentally ill, and will combine this with their ongoing research into the new field of psychiatry which is just beginning. The story will follow both men throughout their lives, their marriages and children, and most of all, their careers. It takes us from around 1870 to 1920, and to three continents, and the world will change in that time from one that still treats madness much as it was treated in medieval times to one that is beginning to understand the physiological and psychological causes of mental illness and venturing into developing treatments.
The ‘family saga’ aspect of the book is done exceptionally well. Soon the two men will be joined by the women who will be their wives, and both Sonia and Katharina are just as well drawn as the men and are given as much space to develop. Through Sonia, Thomas’ sister, we see the still restricted place of women in the British class system, as she is first married off to a man who has little to recommend him but his position in the world. Then, as she is deemed barren (it is not considered possible that it might be her husband who is infertile), her use as a wife is over, and she is returned to her parents much like faulty goods returned to a store. Happily, she recognises this as a release from an unhappy situation, and soon she and Jacques will fall in love, giving her the passion that had been missing in her marriage, and also giving her at least the hope that she may have a child some day.
Katharina's story offers a different lens on the treatment of women at this time. She first appears as a patient at the clinic, suffering from mysterious pains and symptoms that are put down to that catch-all female illness, hysteria. Through her we see the kinds of experimental and abusive treatments that were used on women, and the basic lack of understanding of female physiology. However, skipping past some spoilers, Katharina eventually becomes Thomas’ wife, and they will have children too.
The other aspect of the book is its look at the history of psychiatry from its earliest days. This seems to be what divides readers. There is no doubt that there’s a lot of exposition on this subject, sometimes complete chapters on one theory or another. Personally, I found it all unexpectedly fascinating and cheerfully spent hours down each rabbit-hole, checking what was accurate (most of it), what was anachronistic (some of it, mostly for good dramatic purposes), and what happened next in terms of how psychiatry developed later. Occasionally it does slow things down too much, but never for too long, I felt.
Thomas starts his career by working in an asylum, housing around two thousand patients who are mostly simply fed, clothed and kept occupied, rather than receiving anything in the way of treatment. Happily, Faulks does not create horrible cruelty and abuse for dramatic purposes – he shows it as a place where the staff broadly care about the welfare of the inmates, even if they can’t do much for them. It’s here that Thomas realises how often people are diagnosed as ‘mad’ when in fact they have simply transgressed moral codes, or have some physical disability, like blindness or deafness, that makes it hard for them to function in the world of that time. Jacques, meanwhile, is studying under some of the great European doctors in Paris, learning of the new theories, some of which, viewed through a modern lens, seem almost laughable now but which were considered cutting edge at the time – a handy reminder for us to stop getting carried away by every new theory medical minds come up with! Jacques is seen as a promising student from whom much is hoped, but his main aim remains to find a diagnosis for his brother, and to develop treatments and even, perhaps, a cure, for what ails him.
Eventually their growing reputations enable them to attract the funding needed to open their own clinic in the Austrian Alps, the Schloss Seeblick, where they will try out some of their theories. Their patients are mostly the paying rich, whose ‘diseases’ are often merely a need for a relaxing break, but they fund what both men see as their real work of research, and allow them to treat some poor patients too on a pro bono basis.
As time passes, we see society in Europe slowly change, and then the crash into the First World War which will change things forever, not least for our protagonists. Although the war plays only a very small part in the story, Faulks writes beautifully and movingly about it, reminiscent of his writing in Birdsong.
This book is billed as the first in a trilogy of which to date only two have been published – this and Snow Country, which covers a later period and involves some of the children of these original couples, bringing the history of psychiatry up to around the start of the Second World War. I very much hope Faulks does write a third volume – it is clearly a subject that fascinates him and, through him, it now fascinates me too. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
The ‘family saga’ aspect of the book is done exceptionally well. Soon the two men will be joined by the women who will be their wives, and both Sonia and Katharina are just as well drawn as the men and are given as much space to develop. Through Sonia, Thomas’ sister, we see the still restricted place of women in the British class system, as she is first married off to a man who has little to recommend him but his position in the world. Then, as she is deemed barren (it is not considered possible that it might be her husband who is infertile), her use as a wife is over, and she is returned to her parents much like faulty goods returned to a store. Happily, she recognises this as a release from an unhappy situation, and soon she and Jacques will fall in love, giving her the passion that had been missing in her marriage, and also giving her at least the hope that she may have a child some day.
Katharina's story offers a different lens on the treatment of women at this time. She first appears as a patient at the clinic, suffering from mysterious pains and symptoms that are put down to that catch-all female illness, hysteria. Through her we see the kinds of experimental and abusive treatments that were used on women, and the basic lack of understanding of female physiology. However, skipping past some spoilers, Katharina eventually becomes Thomas’ wife, and they will have children too.
The other aspect of the book is its look at the history of psychiatry from its earliest days. This seems to be what divides readers. There is no doubt that there’s a lot of exposition on this subject, sometimes complete chapters on one theory or another. Personally, I found it all unexpectedly fascinating and cheerfully spent hours down each rabbit-hole, checking what was accurate (most of it), what was anachronistic (some of it, mostly for good dramatic purposes), and what happened next in terms of how psychiatry developed later. Occasionally it does slow things down too much, but never for too long, I felt.
Thomas starts his career by working in an asylum, housing around two thousand patients who are mostly simply fed, clothed and kept occupied, rather than receiving anything in the way of treatment. Happily, Faulks does not create horrible cruelty and abuse for dramatic purposes – he shows it as a place where the staff broadly care about the welfare of the inmates, even if they can’t do much for them. It’s here that Thomas realises how often people are diagnosed as ‘mad’ when in fact they have simply transgressed moral codes, or have some physical disability, like blindness or deafness, that makes it hard for them to function in the world of that time. Jacques, meanwhile, is studying under some of the great European doctors in Paris, learning of the new theories, some of which, viewed through a modern lens, seem almost laughable now but which were considered cutting edge at the time – a handy reminder for us to stop getting carried away by every new theory medical minds come up with! Jacques is seen as a promising student from whom much is hoped, but his main aim remains to find a diagnosis for his brother, and to develop treatments and even, perhaps, a cure, for what ails him.
Eventually their growing reputations enable them to attract the funding needed to open their own clinic in the Austrian Alps, the Schloss Seeblick, where they will try out some of their theories. Their patients are mostly the paying rich, whose ‘diseases’ are often merely a need for a relaxing break, but they fund what both men see as their real work of research, and allow them to treat some poor patients too on a pro bono basis.
As time passes, we see society in Europe slowly change, and then the crash into the First World War which will change things forever, not least for our protagonists. Although the war plays only a very small part in the story, Faulks writes beautifully and movingly about it, reminiscent of his writing in Birdsong.
This book is billed as the first in a trilogy of which to date only two have been published – this and Snow Country, which covers a later period and involves some of the children of these original couples, bringing the history of psychiatry up to around the start of the Second World War. I very much hope Faulks does write a third volume – it is clearly a subject that fascinates him and, through him, it now fascinates me too. 4½ stars for me, so rounded up.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
November 4, 2024
Wow. Where do I even begin?
I suppose I'll just start by saying right off the bat, how much I absolutely love this book. I read somewhere on here that it took Faulks five years to write - and I'm not surprised. This sprawling tale that starts off with two young men, Jacques and Thomas, "brothers from another mother" meeting on a beach in France, and beginning what is to become a lifetime friendship, which blends into them becoming family, work-colleagues, and business-partners too over the years. Like all brothers they have their fallings-out, periods of animosity and competitiveness, but ultimately their bond endures; helped by the fact that Sonia is the sister of Thomas and later becomes the wife of Jacques.
This tale is epic: beginning in the late Victorian period, moving through fin-de-siècle Paris, early 20th century Austria, the intense upheaval of the First World War and ending in post-war England. Along the way Thomas & Jacques (whose disciplines in medicine move in different directions, as they work to unravel the workings of the human mind - one from a more biological approach, the other in an early venture into the psychiatric and psychoanalytic realm of treatment) travel to see the earliest evidence of human existence among the rift valley in Africa, and the new world of invention and innovation in California, respectively.
With time spent in the miserable asylums in England and the burgeoning research being conducted in the Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, each young man works diligently, feverishly even, to qualify as doctors in their field of expertise, and begin practicing in order to save every penny they can to open up a sanatorium where they hope to try to help understand, cure, or at least make life easier for the troubled mentally ill individuals for whom life has been utterly miserable.
But among all this ambition also weaves a more solid tale of their relationships, the families they create and the wonderful characters who infuse their lives with curiosity, beneficence, mischief, intrigue and joy. Marriages take place, children are born, lifelong friendships are formed and losses are felt deeply. Chance occurrences in fleeting meetings with those who go on to play a huge part in these characters' lives, mirror those chance mutations that via natural selection, went on to make us the human beings we know - and still seek to truly understand - today.
Faulks has created this beautiful tapestry of life, in a way in which I believe he intends to mirror the complexity of human life, the fragility of the psyche, and the fortuitous yet almost unlikely luck in which homo sapiens first came to be. Thomas and his search for the real tangible proof of mental illness that can be pinpointed on a slide of brain tissue, compliments Jacques in his own search for the more nebulous, harder to pin down, understanding of the human psyche. The marriage of these two approaches causes friction between the two ambitious young men, just as in reality the differing emerging schools of thought surrounding the brain, mind and psyche, found themselves at odds with one another in the medical community.
Faulks has done a fantastic job of researching the history of the study of mental illness and having done a little reading on the subject myself, I recognised a few of the names featured for their famed forays into the human mind. He really made people like Charcot come to life vividly on the page, and in writing the theses of both Jacques and Thomas, created utterly believable documents that he had obviously spent a huge amount of time perfecting.
There is so much I want to say about this book, but won't, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I felt as though the people I was reading about were all incredibly real; I felt joy for their successes and even shed a tear over some of their own sadnesses. (And everyone should wish to have a Pierre Valade turn up unexpectedly, every so often in their lives!)
To those who thought this book ought to have been shorter, I must vehemently disagree. (These are probably the same people who think that the entire haystack part of Lev's experience in 'Anna Karenina' should have been cut out, along with most of the society scenes, with as rapid a rush to the denouement as possible! But each to their own I suppose.) I personally would have welcomed another 300 pages spent among the lives of the characters in this book...although poor Mr Faulks would probably have gone mad as he ended up taking ten years to write them! That he managed to fit in so much into just over 600 pages without any of it feeling rushed or abrupt, is a miracle in itself.
The poignant ending seemed to perfectly sum up what I believe was the underlying thesis of this book. For all the intense scientific study of the brain, regardless as to whether one's approach is rooted in the biological or the psychological, it is the lives we lead with the people we love, which truly allows us to experience what it means to be human. Life is precious, sometimes fragile and yet can cause us to become stronger in the face of adversity. Some things happen by chance and some things amount to nothing; the dead ends of human connection as common yet inexplicable as some of the genetic dead ends that never go on to emerge in our physical or mental make-up. (I believe the mysterious other Mr Midwinter, found secreted in the garret of the asylum, never to be spoken of again, was perhaps an allegorical allusion to these lost genetic markers that disappear down the ages.)
Some parts of this book turned out just as I expected, but many did not. And that is just the way it should be - in my mind at least. This was the first book by Sebastian Faulks that I have read, but I daresay it will not be the last. In fact I see that he has written a follow up to this book "Snow Country" which returns to the sanatorium built by Thomas and Jacques, only now under new management and facing different problems in 1936. (I think I may be a little late to the party insofar as discovering this author is concerned, but if anyone else is curious about trying out some Faulks for the first time, this book would be an excellent starting point.) I am awarding this book a much deserved five star rating, and I hope that my review may convince at least one person to give it a go. (Also: I have the hardback copy and the jacket design is just so perfect: detailing a seascape that is at once both beautiful and bleak, which encapsulates the themes of this novel brilliantly.)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I suppose I'll just start by saying right off the bat, how much I absolutely love this book. I read somewhere on here that it took Faulks five years to write - and I'm not surprised. This sprawling tale that starts off with two young men, Jacques and Thomas, "brothers from another mother" meeting on a beach in France, and beginning what is to become a lifetime friendship, which blends into them becoming family, work-colleagues, and business-partners too over the years. Like all brothers they have their fallings-out, periods of animosity and competitiveness, but ultimately their bond endures; helped by the fact that Sonia is the sister of Thomas and later becomes the wife of Jacques.
This tale is epic: beginning in the late Victorian period, moving through fin-de-siècle Paris, early 20th century Austria, the intense upheaval of the First World War and ending in post-war England. Along the way Thomas & Jacques (whose disciplines in medicine move in different directions, as they work to unravel the workings of the human mind - one from a more biological approach, the other in an early venture into the psychiatric and psychoanalytic realm of treatment) travel to see the earliest evidence of human existence among the rift valley in Africa, and the new world of invention and innovation in California, respectively.
With time spent in the miserable asylums in England and the burgeoning research being conducted in the Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, each young man works diligently, feverishly even, to qualify as doctors in their field of expertise, and begin practicing in order to save every penny they can to open up a sanatorium where they hope to try to help understand, cure, or at least make life easier for the troubled mentally ill individuals for whom life has been utterly miserable.
But among all this ambition also weaves a more solid tale of their relationships, the families they create and the wonderful characters who infuse their lives with curiosity, beneficence, mischief, intrigue and joy. Marriages take place, children are born, lifelong friendships are formed and losses are felt deeply. Chance occurrences in fleeting meetings with those who go on to play a huge part in these characters' lives, mirror those chance mutations that via natural selection, went on to make us the human beings we know - and still seek to truly understand - today.
Faulks has created this beautiful tapestry of life, in a way in which I believe he intends to mirror the complexity of human life, the fragility of the psyche, and the fortuitous yet almost unlikely luck in which homo sapiens first came to be. Thomas and his search for the real tangible proof of mental illness that can be pinpointed on a slide of brain tissue, compliments Jacques in his own search for the more nebulous, harder to pin down, understanding of the human psyche. The marriage of these two approaches causes friction between the two ambitious young men, just as in reality the differing emerging schools of thought surrounding the brain, mind and psyche, found themselves at odds with one another in the medical community.
Faulks has done a fantastic job of researching the history of the study of mental illness and having done a little reading on the subject myself, I recognised a few of the names featured for their famed forays into the human mind. He really made people like Charcot come to life vividly on the page, and in writing the theses of both Jacques and Thomas, created utterly believable documents that he had obviously spent a huge amount of time perfecting.
There is so much I want to say about this book, but won't, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone. I felt as though the people I was reading about were all incredibly real; I felt joy for their successes and even shed a tear over some of their own sadnesses. (And everyone should wish to have a Pierre Valade turn up unexpectedly, every so often in their lives!)
To those who thought this book ought to have been shorter, I must vehemently disagree. (These are probably the same people who think that the entire haystack part of Lev's experience in 'Anna Karenina' should have been cut out, along with most of the society scenes, with as rapid a rush to the denouement as possible! But each to their own I suppose.) I personally would have welcomed another 300 pages spent among the lives of the characters in this book...although poor Mr Faulks would probably have gone mad as he ended up taking ten years to write them! That he managed to fit in so much into just over 600 pages without any of it feeling rushed or abrupt, is a miracle in itself.
The poignant ending seemed to perfectly sum up what I believe was the underlying thesis of this book. For all the intense scientific study of the brain, regardless as to whether one's approach is rooted in the biological or the psychological, it is the lives we lead with the people we love, which truly allows us to experience what it means to be human. Life is precious, sometimes fragile and yet can cause us to become stronger in the face of adversity. Some things happen by chance and some things amount to nothing; the dead ends of human connection as common yet inexplicable as some of the genetic dead ends that never go on to emerge in our physical or mental make-up. (I believe the mysterious other Mr Midwinter, found secreted in the garret of the asylum, never to be spoken of again, was perhaps an allegorical allusion to these lost genetic markers that disappear down the ages.)
Some parts of this book turned out just as I expected, but many did not. And that is just the way it should be - in my mind at least. This was the first book by Sebastian Faulks that I have read, but I daresay it will not be the last. In fact I see that he has written a follow up to this book "Snow Country" which returns to the sanatorium built by Thomas and Jacques, only now under new management and facing different problems in 1936. (I think I may be a little late to the party insofar as discovering this author is concerned, but if anyone else is curious about trying out some Faulks for the first time, this book would be an excellent starting point.) I am awarding this book a much deserved five star rating, and I hope that my review may convince at least one person to give it a go. (Also: I have the hardback copy and the jacket design is just so perfect: detailing a seascape that is at once both beautiful and bleak, which encapsulates the themes of this novel brilliantly.)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
January 13, 2021
I struggled with this book a little. A nice story but a bit too in depth making me have to work at what i was reading.
April 18, 2020
I picked up this 2005 novel as it was recommended by my friend and esteemed work colleague Julie. In short: I loved it.
I see from both Goodreads and newspaper reviews that this novel is not universally liked but it was right up my street. It follows the lives of two doctors, from their childhoods through their careers as specialists in psychiatry to their old age. They set up a clinic together despite developing contrasting theories as to the causes of and treatments for mental illness, and their intellectual differences both bind them together and drive them apart.
This novel was perfect for me because Faulks skilfully wove together fictional biography with medicine, psychiatry, travel, the thrill of early scientific discovery, moral complexity, interpersonal relationships, love and philosophy - all things I really enjoy reading about. The sometime lengthy exposition of early psychiatric theory in the book is often singled out as a point for criticism, but I found it fascinating. I was completely absorbed into the world Faulks created.
The edition I read ran to 786 pages but felt far shorter. This is a book which I will remember for a long time.
I see from both Goodreads and newspaper reviews that this novel is not universally liked but it was right up my street. It follows the lives of two doctors, from their childhoods through their careers as specialists in psychiatry to their old age. They set up a clinic together despite developing contrasting theories as to the causes of and treatments for mental illness, and their intellectual differences both bind them together and drive them apart.
This novel was perfect for me because Faulks skilfully wove together fictional biography with medicine, psychiatry, travel, the thrill of early scientific discovery, moral complexity, interpersonal relationships, love and philosophy - all things I really enjoy reading about. The sometime lengthy exposition of early psychiatric theory in the book is often singled out as a point for criticism, but I found it fascinating. I was completely absorbed into the world Faulks created.
The edition I read ran to 786 pages but felt far shorter. This is a book which I will remember for a long time.
April 25, 2010
This book was surprisingly a faster read than I expected considering the subject matter and the size. Faulks is now one of my favourite writers and I intend to go back and read all of his novels that I've missed. It is staggering to think of the amount of research needed to write this book. The history of the study of madness, as Faulks so brilliant depicts, is a long convoluted one with some doctors lost in the mire of false diagnosises and others completely "off base" and of course it takes its toll on the two main characters in Human Traces.
I found the ending particularly poignant but was a little disappointed with the "voices" of the two very different main characters. Despite one being French, the other English and both having quite different world views - when you're inside their head it seemed to be the one person. I'm aware that this wouldn't bother a lot of readers but it's something I'm particularly fascinated with and this is my only criticism. For those who are interested in the subject matter - a very worthwhile read.
I found the ending particularly poignant but was a little disappointed with the "voices" of the two very different main characters. Despite one being French, the other English and both having quite different world views - when you're inside their head it seemed to be the one person. I'm aware that this wouldn't bother a lot of readers but it's something I'm particularly fascinated with and this is my only criticism. For those who are interested in the subject matter - a very worthwhile read.
October 16, 2017
A remarkable and challenging novel. Ambitious and expansive, Faulks accurately deals with the development of neurology during the late 19th and early 20th centuries through his two utterly dedicated practitioners, Thomas Midwinter and Jacques Rebiere. We are taken from the worst practices of Victorian asylums to the enlightened treatment of patients in their Swiss Clinic. But; the science is in its infancy, mistakes are made and tensions arise. The mysteries of what makes us human simply cannot be 'solved' definitively. Full of wonderful characters, incident and huge pathos.
April 28, 2020
It is a challenge to read your way through it, but it is very rewarding to do so.
January 25, 2022
Omg. No words. I am in tears.
Will update and revise this review the next time I carve out some free time and I've collected my thoughts.
But in a nutshell: Fantastic. I'm shook!
Will update and revise this review the next time I carve out some free time and I've collected my thoughts.
But in a nutshell: Fantastic. I'm shook!
July 9, 2025
I suspect this is Faulks' best work. It is obsessively detailed and his characters are brilliantly human. The narrative follows the adult lives of two doctors from the 1870s to the 1920s and as a result combines a sense of the development of human history with an ultra-specific focus on breakthroughs and false assumptions in the field of psychology. It is actually obscene that Faulks manages to write replica lectures and essays imagining how these characters would have contributed to this absurdly complicated field with such fluidity. They were by far the most interesting sections of the novel - they served as time capsules of the cutting edge of psychiatry/neurology across half a century. I was invested in both of them, although I disliked Jacques, because even when they were unlikeable it was in very human ways. The narrative was beautiful, the setting and research meticulously accurate and the whole well-paced, especially with the time and perspective shifts between chapters.
However. This is the third book I've read by Faulks and I am noticing some troubling themes.
1) Faulks is obsessed with men having relationships with older women. This one is just funny.
2) Faulks is obsessed with adultery. Since men do in fact cheat on their wives, his including it so frequently is not a red flag except for point 3:
3) Faulks is a teensy bit sexist. He repeatedly treats men cheating on their wives as due to some kind of biological drive which a good woman understands. He is also really, really into female fertility, periods, miscarriages, childbirth etc. to an extent which feels fetishistic. It just comes up so often. And going on about women looking youthful and fecund - ick. The treatment of Sonia throughout the text, and especially the way in which she just grins and bears literally anything a man does to her, would not be so egregious if it wasn't for Faulks' claim to represent the inner lives of men and women . He truly believes that he is making profound (gender-essentialising) statements about what it means to exist as a woman. And, looking at the female characters in the book, we have It couldn't be more obvious that female characters are being used to advance Thomas and Jacques' narratives, which is already dubious, but to claim that this is in some way representative of the female psyche is quite offensive.
4) Faulks is a teensy bit racist. The Africa segment is supposed to represent the attitudes of the characters unflatteringly but there are still moments where he blunders into microaggression. Yes, the characters themselves express views that we are supposed to challenge but Faulks does not even bother to name a single black character, using them all disposably to supplement Thomas' story. There are also just a few phrases that came across as supremely patronising and as if he was missing his own point.
5) Faulks is obsessed with WWI. This one isn't a problem it's just true. He literally couldn't resist writing yet another duckboard-related scene. I had to study Birdsong for A Level - please free me from this man's representations of Passchendaele.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book but I was very frustrated by Faulks' love of Western canonical figures. It was fascinating and engaging and beautiful but flawed by self-imposed limits on which stories were interesting (white male ones, obvs). It amuses me that the only group Faulks represented but I feel didn't offend is the mentally ill and neurodiverse. The "insane" are treated very clinically, without sensationalism; what is emphasised is the inhumanity of their treatment and the doctors' frustration at not being able to cure them. The distress asylum inmates feel and the terror of losing control of one's mind is really poignantly established, as is the fact that at any moment any person could become "insane", losing their dignity and their personhood. The reason that I rooted for Jacques despite his terrible personality was his insistence that this was wrong. It was persuasive and, without making direct reference but by focusing on the underpinnings of modern psychiatry, forced the reader to reflect on the current psychiatric care system and its failings.
I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who likes to watch incredibly niche video essays analysing 90 episode TV shows they've never watched or anything of that ilk. For a few days I took on Faulks' obsession with turn-of-the-century psychiatry. My brain will not retain any of it but the passion completely swept me away. Really, really excellent.
However. This is the third book I've read by Faulks and I am noticing some troubling themes.
1) Faulks is obsessed with men having relationships with older women. This one is just funny.
2) Faulks is obsessed with adultery. Since men do in fact cheat on their wives, his including it so frequently is not a red flag except for point 3:
3) Faulks is a teensy bit sexist. He repeatedly treats men cheating on their wives as due to some kind of biological drive which a good woman understands. He is also really, really into female fertility, periods, miscarriages, childbirth etc. to an extent which feels fetishistic. It just comes up so often. And going on about women looking youthful and fecund - ick. The treatment of Sonia throughout the text, and especially the way in which she just grins and bears literally anything a man does to her, would not be so egregious if it wasn't for Faulks' claim to represent the inner lives of men and women . He truly believes that he is making profound (gender-essentialising) statements about what it means to exist as a woman. And, looking at the female characters in the book, we have It couldn't be more obvious that female characters are being used to advance Thomas and Jacques' narratives, which is already dubious, but to claim that this is in some way representative of the female psyche is quite offensive.
4) Faulks is a teensy bit racist. The Africa segment is supposed to represent the attitudes of the characters unflatteringly but there are still moments where he blunders into microaggression. Yes, the characters themselves express views that we are supposed to challenge but Faulks does not even bother to name a single black character, using them all disposably to supplement Thomas' story. There are also just a few phrases that came across as supremely patronising and as if he was missing his own point.
5) Faulks is obsessed with WWI. This one isn't a problem it's just true. He literally couldn't resist writing yet another duckboard-related scene. I had to study Birdsong for A Level - please free me from this man's representations of Passchendaele.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book but I was very frustrated by Faulks' love of Western canonical figures. It was fascinating and engaging and beautiful but flawed by self-imposed limits on which stories were interesting (white male ones, obvs). It amuses me that the only group Faulks represented but I feel didn't offend is the mentally ill and neurodiverse. The "insane" are treated very clinically, without sensationalism; what is emphasised is the inhumanity of their treatment and the doctors' frustration at not being able to cure them. The distress asylum inmates feel and the terror of losing control of one's mind is really poignantly established, as is the fact that at any moment any person could become "insane", losing their dignity and their personhood. The reason that I rooted for Jacques despite his terrible personality was his insistence that this was wrong. It was persuasive and, without making direct reference but by focusing on the underpinnings of modern psychiatry, forced the reader to reflect on the current psychiatric care system and its failings.
I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who likes to watch incredibly niche video essays analysing 90 episode TV shows they've never watched or anything of that ilk. For a few days I took on Faulks' obsession with turn-of-the-century psychiatry. My brain will not retain any of it but the passion completely swept me away. Really, really excellent.
July 27, 2024
This is a monumental novel, wide in its range of both the personal stories of the characters and of the period which saw the early beginnings of Psychiatry as a scientific discipline. It’s the late 19th Century and doctors and researchers are awakening to the drive to seek a cure for the afflicted rather than lock them up in asylums.
Through its well-drawn and developed characters, with Thomas and Jacques leading the diverse cast, the novel takes us on a riveting journey through this period. We follow the trials and tribulations of the nascent disciplines of Neurology and Psychiatry, of Thomas and Jacques’ careers as burgeoning psychiatrists, and of the personal lives of the characters populating this wide-ranging novel, bringing us up to the end of WWI. The fictional story is strewn with references to, and descriptions of, the non-fictional institutions and leaders of the field and of their research.
The story itself is engrossing and moving. There is a certain point in the novel in which we access the tormented mind of Olivier, Jacques’ insane (later to be defined as schizophrenic) brother. Being in his mind, imprisoned in his torment, is one of the emotional heights of the novel.
The novel’s range is wide in its attempt to capture, through the story of Thomas and Jacques’ lives, the complexity of the uncharted essence of the human mind and consciousness as it has evolved from well before homo sapiens became the dominant species. It does so admirably.
I found the non-fictional parts, embedded in the novel as background to the story of Thomas and Jacques, to be an added value giving credence and clarity to the narrative as a whole.
Through its well-drawn and developed characters, with Thomas and Jacques leading the diverse cast, the novel takes us on a riveting journey through this period. We follow the trials and tribulations of the nascent disciplines of Neurology and Psychiatry, of Thomas and Jacques’ careers as burgeoning psychiatrists, and of the personal lives of the characters populating this wide-ranging novel, bringing us up to the end of WWI. The fictional story is strewn with references to, and descriptions of, the non-fictional institutions and leaders of the field and of their research.
The story itself is engrossing and moving. There is a certain point in the novel in which we access the tormented mind of Olivier, Jacques’ insane (later to be defined as schizophrenic) brother. Being in his mind, imprisoned in his torment, is one of the emotional heights of the novel.
The novel’s range is wide in its attempt to capture, through the story of Thomas and Jacques’ lives, the complexity of the uncharted essence of the human mind and consciousness as it has evolved from well before homo sapiens became the dominant species. It does so admirably.
I found the non-fictional parts, embedded in the novel as background to the story of Thomas and Jacques, to be an added value giving credence and clarity to the narrative as a whole.
February 28, 2023
Brilliant. Follows the lives of two doctors at the forefront of the new science of psychiatry at the end of the 19th century. Heavy on some of the scientific detail and arguments at times (Faulks throws in an entire lecture from both of the main characters at different points, in whole), but also full of beautiful storytelling and characters. Wouldn’t be for everyone, but I loved it
July 18, 2025
One of the best I've read this year
December 31, 2024
wayyy too long
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