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Books Related to Human Traces Sebastian Faulks - ISBN: 0099458268
Fascinating but overly-done - Rated
This was a very complex book about a very complex subject. Neurology can fill whole volumes and still never be properly explored - I work for a medical publisher and we publish whole series of books on neurology and still the subject is not exhausted! The history of the subject is indeed fascinating and I liked the characters in the book, but to me they were still not quite fleshed out enough - they seemed rather two-dimensional. The long lectures that are delivered verbatim were pretty boring and not really necessary to the plot; they merely served to show the author's exhaustive research - which was very impressive certainly. Somehow the whole book just did not gel for me - I find Faulks' works difficult to get into at the best of times. The most action came towards the end where he did rather rush to finish things off neatly which was a shame as he could have cut the book by at least a third and upped the pace a lot more. The most interesting bit for me was the bit in the desert about the footprints and Daniel's thoughts on the speech patterns and voices - that was really interesting and thought-provoking.
However, on the whole this book did not work for me and was really just too long and drawn out to be satisfactory.
A rare, intelligent novel - Rated
This is a very rare find - a novel that is engrossing as a story and makes you think and consider some real questions about the human mind and existence. At times the pace was a bit slow and then towards the end the events came too thick and fast but overall this is a gem of a book. At time humourous, at others shocking this is a truly grown-up novel that challenges and entertains in equal measure.
If you're fascinated by humanity read this. - Rated
My favourite Faulks by far. He portrayal of his character's commitment to their careers and to humanity, is inspirational and has indeed inspired me to change my career path. His characterisation of women is superb and my empathy with Sonia is testimony to this. It is epic in it proportions and spans a fascinating period of social/ medical and political history. I wept at the end.
Only traces of humanity - Rated
I yield to no-one in my admiration of Faulks. His ability to convey human emotion without becoming excessively sentimental is remarkable as is his ability to create narratives that read easily in a style that never intrudes.Is it heresy to say that all his books are flawed? Even Birdsong - for my money his greatest work - suffers from an opening and ending which are contrived and weak. But that doesn't stop it being a great book.
But Human Traces seems to me a work where a wise editor should have intervened. Faulks' remarkable intelligence is focussed on the history of the science we now call psychology to such an extent that he neglects the observation of human qualities for which he is rightly feted. Uniquely amongst his works Human Traces is a hard slog to read and its characters are soon forgotten. Anyone who enjoys good writing should try Faulks; just don't start with this one.
Faulks does it again - Rated
This is one of the worst novels I've ever read - forced to do so by my book club. After a decent first chapter, it becomes some 600 pages of pseudo-scientific waffle, with no concern for characterisation, plot, style, description or - well, life itself. But it makes no difference what Faulks writes, supported as he is by a degenerate bookselling industry (cue Waterstone's) with zero concern for quality, literary or otherwise. Like so many others, Faulks passes all the filtering mechanisms novel after dreadful novel only because there are no filtering mechanisms except the ugly sieve of cash profit. The just punishment for those many who buy this particular effort (I've seen them) is excruciating boredom - even if they skip the grisly twenty-page lectures.
