Tag: History

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks

A voluminous 609 page novel in the Victorian tradition covering decades, lives and obsession. Thomas and Jacques, both born in 1860 meet when 16 and develop a joint determination to practice medical psychiatry, Jacques inspired to help his brother Olivier and Thomas to discover the origins of human psychiatric illness, they also become brothers-in-law.

The first half of the book follows the upward and optimistic trajectory of the pair as they learn their profession and establish a sanatorium in Austria. Their enthusiasm is a reflection of the bounding optimism of psychiatry at the time emerging rapidly from very, very, basic understanding and treatments. The story is illustrated by many fictional and real examples of cases, lectures, notes and observations, following methods ideas and personalities-many of these episodes don’t spare detail. This historical fact/fiction is a fascinating exposition of the development of psychiatry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, for non-experts, like me.

The progress of the two may seem somewhat smooth and easy, but there will be a price to pay. The combined expectations of the young men and the their profession begin to encounter challenges with experience and reality, maturity and more emerges, in professional and personal lives.

Faulks’ novel has a packed itinerary, with diversions to California and east Africa. Sometimes dialogue is used to present ideas, some of the later developments seem bolted on to complete the family panorama required of the framing “Victorian” format. The final trajectory though ends not in 1914 but 1920, Victoria usurped by World War One.

Do Thomas and Jacques solve basic psychiatric issues, no of course not, but they leave traces behind like early man in Africa or the patient records, which they studied. The accessible immediacy of this novel brings a big step forward in our self understanding alive for the reader.

The Plague by Albert Camus

Written during World War Two in occupied France the story is set in 1940’s Oran, French colonial Algeria. The city is quarantined during the progress of bubonic plague. Events are described by an initially unnamed narrator and are centered around Dr Rieux and a small group of colleagues and friends. The book is usually regarded as a significant existentialist work. Also, it has particular relevance since COVID.

The narration presented as a personal journal, is anthropologically detailed on the emergence of plague in the city and the effect on people, medically, socially and emotionally. The tone and tempo of the story rise from bemused disbelief and wishful thinking to restrained social terror and individual horror.

Plague is discussed as an act of God, a moral judgment, social judgment, evil, accident and wrong by different voices. The setting in a sun-baked coastal city trapped by the advancing, deepening plague, first witnessed as rats dying in the streets is contrasted with the seeming helplessness of humanity faced with a determined fate. It has been said that Camus is illustrating the absurdity, even uselessness, of life in this allegory.

It is true that the main characters come to a range of fates, among others, themes of religion, sanity and language are discussed. However, there seems to be a strong thread of humanity in the reactions, sooner or later, of these characters, despite the challenges of horror, inevitability, selfishness, death and loss of hope. Do you do nothing, up the denial, or does something deep inside us actually try to act humanly? What triggers this? If the death of a little boy (despite the well meaning intervention) doesn’t, nothing will, Camus seems to be saying.

Construction of the language is tight, intense, paced, ambiguity and meaning are intertwined, merge, it’s as if Camus wants close readers to hear the resonance and dilemmas of his view of life. Brutality tests the limits to cast off a sort of case hardened outlook.

In a wider context the characters are not helped by a God, they are not themselves Gods, but they, we, all have a surprisingly wide range of individual choices, we can make social choices if we want. God might be absent, but rationality and humanity can be what remains as well as absurdity, which is the omnipresent.

Vivid, unsentimental philosophy, brilliant story and writing.

Making History by Richard Cohen

A doorstop book, at 753 pages including notes and index, with an equally imposing title, published in 2022. The author has an impressive record in leading London publishing houses, as well as writing and lecturing. He is also five times UK national sabre champion!

So this is a book of historiography by someone who is not a standard academic: the subtitle, “The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past”, indicates the approach is not strictly traditional scholarly, the role of fiction and fictional methods in historical representation is given scope.

There are twenty-two chapters which follow a generally chronological scheme, with thematic diversions, e.g. a chapter on Macaulay to von Ranke, followed by one on “Novelists as Past Masters”. Also the individuals discussed are not just professional historians: from Julius Ceasar through journalists like the legendary William Howard Russell to contemporary T.V. history presenters, e.g. Simon Schama, who is a professional, but with a popular storytelling literary approach. The selection of individuals whilst broad is personal to Cohen, who is an assertive writer.

The emphasis is on the biographical detail of each historian, or storyteller. Essentially the book is a long string of potted biographies. The detail is fascinating and comes at the reader in a cascade, associated biographies melding with each other. It is rather like being shown around an interesting art gallery by a guide in a hurry who keeps looking at their watch.

As I understand it, the book was not initially released in the USA as the publisher there wanted more coverage of black history and historians. This led to an extra 18,000 words being added, including a separate chapter covering historians George W. Williams to Ibram X. Kendi. There is also a separate chapter on key women historians clumsily called “Herstory”, covering Ban Zhao to Mary Beard. In contrast many of the professional spats of the likes of A.J.P. Taylor (controversialist), Hugh Trevor-Roper (hubris and humiliation) and David Starkey (cancelled) seem like entitled pillow fighting and comic relief.

This book is full of anecdotes and quotes, there are forty-five pages of index. Work by Hilary Mantel is representative of the current meeting of historical research and fiction, she says, “history is not the past-it is the method we’ve evolved of organising our ignorance of the past…it’s what left in the sieve when the centuries have run through it.”

A notable ramble around people who wrote history and in doing so made it. A good reference source and read.