Human Traces

Zusatztext "Epic in scope, yet suffused with intimate emotions, Sebastian Faulks' seventh novel is one of those rare works of fiction that satisfies on every level." — Chicago Tribune “Complex and engrossing. . . . A leisurely, enjoyable read . . . always credible and humane.” — Rocky Mountain News “Passages of gruesome and thrilling anatomical detail and episodes of medical casework [make Human Traces ] read like the best detective fiction.” — USA Today "A collage of science, ideas, romance, and adventure. . . . Fascinating." — The Boston Globe Informationen zum Autor Sebastian Faulks Klappentext Sixteen-year-old Jacques Rebière is living a humble life in rural France, studying butterflies and frogs by candlelight in his bedroom. Across the Channel, in England, the playful Thomas Midwinter, also sixteen, is enjoying a life of ease-and is resigned to follow his father's wishes and pursue a career in medicine. A fateful seaside meeting four years later sets the two young men on a profound course of friendship and discovery; they will become pioneers in the burgeoning field of psychiatry. But when a female patient at the doctors' Austrian sanatorium becomes dangerously ill, the two men's conflicting diagnosis threatens to divide them--and to undermine all their professional achievements. From the bestselling author of Birdsong comes this masterful novel that ventures to answer challenging questions of consciousness and science, and what it means to be human. Leseprobe IAn evening mist, salted by the western sea, was gathering on the low hills--reed-spattered rises running up from the rocks then back into the gorse- and bracken-covered country--and on to the roads that joined the villages, where lamps and candles flickered behind the shutters of the gray stone houses. It was poor country--so poor, remarked the Cure, who had recently arrived from Angers, that the stones of the shore called out for God's mercy. With the mist came sputtering rain, made invisible by the extinguished light, as it exploded like flung gravel at the windows, while stronger gusts made the shivering pine trees shed their needles on the dark, sanded earth.Jacques Rebiere listened to the sounds from outside as he looked through the window of his bedroom; for a moment, a dim moon allowed him to see clouds foaming in the darkness. The weather reminded him, often, that it was not just he, at sixteen years old, who was young, but all mankind: a species that took infant steps on the drifts and faults of the earth.Between the ends of his dirtied fingers, Jacques held a small blade which, over the course of several days, he had whetted to surgical sharpness. He pulled a candle closer. From downstairs he could hear the sound of his father's voice in reluctant negotiation.The house was at the top of a narrow street that ran off the main square of Saint Agnes. Behind it, the village ended and there were thick woods--Monsieur Rebiere's own property--where Jacques was meant to trap birds and rabbits and prevent other villagers from doing likewise. The garden had an orchard of pear and apple trees whose fruits were collected and set to keep in one of the outbuildings. Rebiere's was a house of many stores: of sheds with beaten earth underfoot and slatted wooden shelves; of brick-floored cellars with stone bins on which the cobwebs closed the access to the bottles; of barred pantry and latched larder with trays of nuts and preserved fruits. The keys were on a ring in the pocket of Rebiere's waistcoat. Although born no more than sixty years earlier, he was known as "old Rebiere," perhaps for the arthritic movement of his knees, when he heaved himself up from his chair and straightened the joints beneath his breeches. He preferred to do business standing up; it gave the transaction a temporary air, helping to convince the other party that bargaining time was short.Old Rebiere was a forester who worke...

Product details

• Authors: Sebastian Faulks
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 18.03.2008
• EAN: 9780375704574
• ISBN: 978-0-375-70457-4
• No. of pages: 656
• Dimensions: 133 mm x 210 mm x 25 mm
• Series: Vintage International; Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature