I started reading this book thinking it would focus on the history of psychiatry. I finish it being so conflicted - it was partly a love story, adventure and war novel, and medical history book equally. Parts of it were so poignant and beautiful, some thought provoking and interesting to see the names of now infamous early Psychiatrists and Neurologists, but some were so frustrating and random.

I feel as though I have just finished either 3 different books, or a long winded autobiography of 3 separate characters. Several sections like the one with Jacques and Roya in Germany made me so annoyed and felt unnecessary.
Either way I finish this book with a new perspective on mental conditions and the human mind, which I suppose is the point.


I loved this quote (before Jacques spoilt it later in the book)

“ I love you. I shall always love you, the thought of you, the soul of you, what lived before in your name and whatever shall survive of you. May it prove to be when I return home that you were not the product of my imagination, but exist in reality, my true and breathing wife”

Human Traces is a strange book: I was torn between admiring it very much and wishing it would hurry up and end so that I could read something else.

It’s a long book at 608 pages in the edition I read, but long books are usually no problem, especially not if they are written in the style of the traditional 19th century novel. I grew up on the 19th century novel, and I like its certainties and its style, especially for comfort reading. Faulks has recreated this style almost as if he had travelled in time, and the world he creates is compelling and believable.

The problem derives from the 19th century quest to understand the mind and madness, which drives the novel. Two young men, Jacques Rebière and Thomas Midwinter, share the ambition to find a cure for the madness that made them doubt the existence of God. To make this real for the reader, Faulks takes us through the history of managing mental illness, starting with Jacques’ brother Olivier, chained in a barn on the family farm, and moving on to Thomas’s first job in a vast English asylum where the descriptions of how the inmates were treated will haunt you. But the author also devotes long pages to explaining the 19th century theories about mental illness, dressed up in the form of didactic digressions, as when Sonia, Thomas’s sister and eventually Jacques’ wife, is given a crash course in understanding medical terms so that she can understand their work. There are speeches and papers at public events, and internal monologues which reveal the thoughts and anxieties of the two young doctors too. And, as you might expect, there are also sequences of dreams and interpretations, although Freud is present only for his Oedipal theory to be mocked by Thomas, who believes in biological causation of mental illness. (Which brings him into conflict with Jacques, who supports the coexistence of these competing schools of thought).

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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

This is principally about the development of psychology and psychiatry in the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th. Doctors and scientists were trying to discover the causes of mental illness and how to treat it. In particular the interaction between mind and body was investigated and speculated about, and also how evolution can throw a light on mental illness, eg is it a necessary part of being human?

The story is told through 2 young men, one English (Thomas), the other French (Jacques), who meet by chance and discover that their mutual interest in this subject. They set up 2 sanatoriums in Europe and pursue their medical researches, but over time their theories diverge. Jacques marries Thomas’ sister Sonia and Thomas marries one of Jacques’ patients. At times the characters only seem to be there to give voice to the science, some of which is hard going. But towards the end I found empathy and interest in them, especially Sonia, who takes a more pragmatic attitude towards life and what it means to be human.