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.
Mark's Reviews 