Human Traces
Authors: Iain McClure
Journal: BMJ (2005)

One of the pleasures of reading Sebastian Faulks' new novel is that he has convincingly imagined the reality of madness and, in doing so, has done justice to the subjective experience of many patients. Faulks has admirably attempted a huge range of themes: the evolution of Western psychiatry from the middle of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century, the evolutionary origins of psychosis, the nature of subjective experience, to name but a few. However, Human Traces, like madness itself, also runs into internal inconsistencies, some of which are left unresolved.​unresolved.




Figure 1



Sebastian Faulks

Hutchinson, £17.99, pp 624 ISBN 0 09 179455 2

Rating: ★★★




The novel begins by introducing one of its two main characters, Jacques Rebiere, a 19th century French teenager, whose mother died soon after he was born and whose cherished older brother has developed schizophrenia. Jacques' ensuing search, for both a containing female relationship and a cure for his brother's madness, forms the backbone of the plot. Early in this search, Jacques meets the other protagonist, Thomas Middleton, a wealthy adolescent from Lincolnshire, whose first love is Shakespeare, but who also harbours a desire to discover “how the mind works...to show what makes us human.”

Jacques and Thomas go on to train in psychiatry, or “alienism,” as it was then called. Their respective career pathways provide Faulks with the opportunity to describe the different diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to mental illness in 19th century Britain and France. Thomas works in a huge Victorian asylum, which steadily develops a harsher, more punitive regime. Jacques trains at the Salpetriere in Paris, attending dramatic lectures by Charcot. Subsequently, the two doctors set up a clinic in the mountains of Carinthia, raise their respective families, and struggle with professional failure and personal decline.

Faulks' account of the practice of psychiatry in this era must surely be one of the most well researched and wide reaching attempts yet undertaken. He either name checks, or portrays, all of the leaders of this inchoate discipline with one notable exception. Freud is never mentioned, which, given the novel's themes and approach, is hard to understand. Instead, the great man's unexplored influence broods offstage.

I found other aspects to be simultaneously fascinating and frustrating. I struggled to understand what motivated Thomas in his search for meaning. His character has interesting ideas, but his personality did not seem dynamic enough to engender them. Jacques was, I felt, more completely explored, but still left me feeling ultimately unengaged. If anything, it was the more minor characters who had more believable personal journeys, such as Daniel, Jacques' son.

Also, in his consideration of his major theme, Faulks seems to want to have his cake and eat it. On the one hand, he presents his protagonists as being trapped in the scientific ignorance of their era, but on the other, he endows Thomas with various hypotheses that were not developed until the late 20th century. Nevertheless, Human Traces often demonstrates that Faulks is a terrific writer, who can deliver rare insights into the human soul, his themes of ageing and family life being particularly well observed.

A key image, used in the novel, is that of a set of footprints, originally left in the Pliocene era and subsequently discovered by Thomas on a mid-life expedition to Africa. Made by an ancient family, the footprints linger in the memory, once described. They point to a simple spirituality, perhaps now lost. Memorably, Faulks leaves the reader with this trace of humanity, the mystery of our race, re-conceived as a steady, purposeful walk.