What is it to be human? This question, as inBirdsong, is at the heart ofHuman Traces. The story begins in Brittany where a young, poor boy somehow passes his medical exams and goes to Paris, where he attends the lectures of Charcot, the Parisian neurologist who set the world on its head in the 1870s. With a friend, he sets up a clinic in the mysterious mountain district of Carinthia in south-east Austria. IfThe Girl at the Lion d'Orwas a simple three-movement symphony,Birdsongan opera,Charlotte Graya complex four-movement symphony andOn Green Dolphin Streeta concerto, thenHuman Tracesis a Wagnerian grand opera. From the Hardcover edition.