By Judith Umbach Perhaps hearing disembodied voices is a gift,
not a psychopathology. Could the carrying of voiced instructions
in our heads be the true mark of being human? Occasionally, it
all goes wrong and we call it mental illness. Yet, the interior
hearing of the voices of our loved ones, our leaders, and our
past selves is so common as to be universal. In his novel, Human
Traces, Sebastian Faulks explores our understanding of the human
mind in the framework of early psychological research at the
turn of the last century. At the story’s beginning, Jacques is a
boy who would be considered abused in our times but who then was
considered to be a farm labourer, the natural course of family
life in rural France. His older brother, Olivier, has descended
into madness, kept shackled in the barn for his and the family’s
safety. A friendly local priest rescues Jacques from his fate of
subjection and frustrated ambition, giving him an unorthodox
education. Thomas is a bright, eccentric English boy - loved by
his