Human Traces, by Sebastian Faulks

Author: Sebastian Faulks. Review by Martin Shallcross

This book is about two doctors, one French, Jacques, one English, Thomas. They form a close friendship. Jacques marries Thomas’ sister Sonia. The story begins in the 1880s when mentally ill people are locked away, often indefinitely, in lunatic asylums. They are called ‘aliens’. Those caring for them are known as ‘alien doctors’. The doctors know that, for the majority of their patients, there can be no cure. They establish a mental sanatorium in Austria. Both have accepted Darwinism. The traditional God is not a conscious presence in their lives or work.

Thomas travels in East Africa and becomes fascinated by the evolution of early homosapiens. He contemplates the birth of self-consciousness (Adam and Eve) and the beginning of language (The Tower of Babel). Humans now have words in which they can communicate. They tell stories, describe dreams and hear inner voices. The Old Testament prophets heard voices too. ‘God’ was sometimes in the voices, and was real and present for them.

As homosapiens evolved, the voices ceased for most people. Eden was barred to them. God was no longer there as a casual presence. New ways had to be found to worship something that seemed to be no longer present, and which they missed. The Galilean fishermen were taught how to close the gap by one who could still hear God’s voice. Others felt they were called to be conduits of his presence too, and religions began to take shape and expand.

It seems to me that we Quakers unconsciously seek that ‘primitive’ simple relationship with whatever we wish words to convey: the isness of being, the unity of all beings, of all matter. For this we need no human authority, no creeds, no ritual, no effort, just a letting go so that we can experience the spirit, the inner light. Truth can be found without words. Did the sense of the numinous, of a higher power, come to us at the same time as self-consciousness? In the Adam and Eve story they are said to come together.

I left the Anglican church after forty years of ministry. As a Quaker I wait to find in the silence the still small voice. It seems to me that there is a way of believing that needs no formal faith. Perhaps in our worship we are quietly recapturing that primitive state of innocence.

Age and history eventually catch up with Jacques, Thomas, and their families. Jacques is diverted from his research by an erotic adventure. As the first world war looms, Jacques returns to practice in Paris, and Thomas to London. Thomas, aged sixty, has to give up work as Alzheimer’s takes hold of him. The treatment of mental health had staggered uncertainly into the twentieth century.

Jacques and Sonia lose their only son Daniel at Karfreit, as the Austrian army overcomes the British troops. I felt a frisson of identification: I spent eighteen months as a squaddie in the army in a Bavarian barracks named Karfreit after the battle. In the final chapter Sonia returns to Jacques’ childhood home in Brittany. She is the rock of the story, another Mary. She has lost her son but, as rain and tears stream down her face, she faces a broken Europe with hope.

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