Talk:Human Traces

Intent is to expand the plot summary here - hence the spoiler warning. Also some links to outside reviews from authoritative sources --wee paddy 17:38, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I have done a plot summary for this novel as well as incorporating some relevant background information about why SF sto write it. Unforunately, the novel doesn't really work for me - something I have tried to explain in the plot summary. Ivankinsman 14:47, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

"Human Traces charts the progress of psychoanalytical thought in the late Victorian period at a time when psychoanalysis and psychiatry were developing their different explanations for mental disorders". I don't think so. 'Psychoanalytic' is a term reserved for Freud's theories, and Freud is not mentioned in the book, though there is mention of 'the Vienese school'. There is a reference to Psychoanalysis as an "expensively protracted cure for Jewish girls" (p385). There is also cutting criticism of Wilhelm Fliess, Freud's collaborator, (p381) "Thomas listened in disbelief and was surprised that the audience was not hostile". Jaques report on Katherina reads very much as a parody of Georg Groddeck (see the book of the it), who coined the term 'Id' which Freud then took up. Thomas's report on this (p332) is a condemation of the bombastic way in which Groddeck and Freud and his followers frame everything in such a way that you are "damned if you do and damned if you don't" and mentions the idea of 'disprovability' which I think is recent. So I think the book can be seen as Faulk's way of dismissing psychoanalytic ideas as such by saying in effect, "what if Freud had never existed and had not turned talking therapy into such a cult activity, holding up scientific progress". Faulks has done his homework well, and by mentioning many French German and English workers in the field, whose works Thomas and Jaques' read, he makes the point well that Freud did not start what might be called the Psychodynamic approach, he made his name on the strength of the work of others - Charcot, Pierre Janet, Boris Sidis, Maury, Morel, Moritz Benedikt, Max Dessoir and above all Karl Albert Scherner and F. W. Hildebrandt who had ideas about the symblism of dreams several decades before Freud. Great book, but weak on Darwinism, especially where he describes cutting off mice tails as proof against Lamarkism and blood infusion as proof against Pangenesis. See August Weismann and Francis Galton for the truth! --Memestream (talk) 18:25, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Like a review?

Whereas I do agree with most of what is being said in this article, it does read rather like a review. I think phrasings like the following are unhelpful: There are also the passages of Jacques' and Thomas' lectures, and the conversation between Thomas and his colleague, Hannes, in Africa that fail to grasp the reader's imagination owing to their longevity and overly-scientific content. I think opinions (as they are) on whether a particular passage grasps the reader's imagination or not might be better left for the "Controversy and Reviews" section. Captain, my captain (talk) 15:14, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Copyright problem removed

One or more portions of this article duplicated other source(s). The material was copied from: http://www.damaris.org/content/content.php?type=1&id=306 and http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/human-traces-by-sebastian-faulks-506181.html. Infringing material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Yoenit (talk) 19:29, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Can I ask why you have removed the whole plot summary of this book - a book that I read and on which I based the plot summary? This is yet another example of your heavy-handed editing policy. Please restore the original plot summary that gave an in-depth review of the novel's plot. Ivankinsman (talk) 10:20, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

All I can say to that is this:

Content you added to the plot summary

Their ultimate aim is to discover what makes us human. The novel spans almost fifty years and contains much detail about the psychiatric environment of the day. Jacques marries Sonia after she is cruelly divorced by her first husband, and the three of them establish their own clinic for mental illness in Austria. The Schloss Seeblick sanatorium becomes well known, and Thomas and Jacques are able to observe their patients and discover much about the mind. The pair never find a cure for madness, but they move humanity along in its quest for understanding of the human mind. Thomas never discovers what it is that makes us human, but throughout the novel there is a suggestion that mental illness may be part of the price humans pay for being human at all.

This 2006 source:

Their ultimate aim is to discover what makes us human. The lengthy novel spans almost fifty years and contains much detail about the psychiatric environment of the day. Jacques marries Sonia after she is cruelly divorced by her first husband, and the three of them establish their own clinic for mental illness in Austria. The Schloss Seeblick sanatorium becomes well known, and Thomas and Jacques are able to observe their patients and discover much about the mind. The pair never find a cure for madness, but they move humanity along in its quest for understanding of the human mind. Thomas never discovers what it is that makes us human, but throughout the novel there is a suggestion that mental illness may be part of the price humans pay for being human at all.

You even cited that source. Whatever else you may have read, you undeniably copied content into this plot summary. It remained here for years until a diligent contributor found it and in accordance with policy excised it. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 02:44, 23 November 2010 (UTC)