Frank Adams must be the most silent protagonist in fiction. Perhaps his humble voice is what allows the reader to experience the cacophony of the Boer War in The Great Karoo, by Fred Stenson. What seems like a radical departure from Stenson’s usual and successful scenes in western Canada quickly becomes an extension of southern Alberta, as cowboys go off to war in South Africa at the behest of an ungrateful Great Britain.

Frank is a follower, a man uncomfortable with any sort of attention. He loves and knows horses, particularly Dunny. Along with many other cowboys, he and Dunny are shipped first to Halifax and then to South Africa in the roughest of conditions. Already Frank has started to develop a sort of confused resentment at the waste and incompetence of war.

In The Great Karoo, the Boer war is exposed as a shambles. Many characters, both fictional and historic, direct the troops according to their past experiences or to satisfy their own egos. The Boers have their own egotistical leaders, who often outwit the British, yet also disregard human life in pursuit of their goals. Scattered across the desert, plains and hills are Boer farms and towns, eerily reminiscent of Alberta. Naturally, the Boer farmers are uniformly angry and disdainful of the armed interlopers who fight for their subjection.

Despite the death, illnesses, cold, heat, lice, hunger and every other calamity of war, Frank persists even longer than his enlistment requires. He makes friends with Ovide, another man who does what he is told, until he falls fatally for a bad “joke”. And after much persistence, he becomes the true friend of Jeff Davis, a man of ambition and leadership. Frank’s persistence is his most endearing quality. Many times he withdraws, but then he returns to his deep need to be friends with a few select people and horses.

The Great Karoo is a finely crafted novel that teaches us history while defining the value of the quiet voice.

Judith Umbach

Human Traces

Sebastian Faulks

By Judith Umbach

Perhaps hearing disembodied voices is a gift, not a psychopathology. Could the carrying of voiced instructions in our heads be the true mark of being human? Occasionally, it all goes wrong and we call it mental illness. Yet, the interior hearing of the voices of our loved ones, our leaders, and our past selves is so common as to be universal.

In his novel, Human Traces, Sebastian Faulks explores our understanding of the human mind in the framework of early psychological research at the turn of the last century. At the story’s beginning, Jacques is a boy who would be considered abused in our times but who then was considered to be a farm labourer, the natural course of family life in rural France. His older brother, Olivier, has descended into madness, kept shackled in the barn for his and the family’s safety. A friendly local priest rescues Jacques from his fate of subjection and frustrated ambition, giving him an unorthodox education.

Thomas is a bright, eccentric English boy - loved by his family, given wide-ranging freedom to explore his world, and educated according to upper-middle class standards. On holiday in France, the two boys meet and in the way of some friendships, they become immediately inseparable. For life.

As professional medical men, and with Sophie, Thomas’s sister, then Jacques’ wife, they establish a therapeutic spa in central Europe to treat the exhausted, the psychosomatic, and the mentally ill. The three owners demonstrate a sensible approach to the economics of business, in order to achieve Jacques’ goal of first caring-for and then curing his brother. The men are determined to advance the knowledge of psychiatric factors in illness and wellness.

Faulks occasionally strays from his fictional style to speak almost directly to the reader about the early research in this field; however, since the information is interesting in light of our more sophisticated current knowledge, this is easily forgiven. Human Traces is a fascinating, slow-moving novel, in which we share the false starts and tiny progressions towards a better understanding of ourselves.