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I think it was the title that initially attracted me to this book. It’s the kind of title that makes you pick up the book and have a closer look at it. The reviews are mostly fine, sometimes more than that: “It is unlikely there will be a finer written fiction this year”, Chris Petit writes in the Guardian, March 11, 2006.
The Weight of Numbers is a conglomeration of different stories and different destinies, spread out over four continents and several decades. There’s the moon landing in 1969, there’s the troubled state of Mozambique in the 70s and 80s, there’s anorexia, WW2, human trafficking and wrestling. Sometimes the lives of some of the characters intertwine by chance, but there isn’t really any continuity between the various snapshots.
The book is gripping at times, at other times too cruel for my taste, but most of all rather confusing, unless you read it over a short period. My problem was that I kept forgetting who was who, even though I read at least a couple of chapters each day. I simply lost track of all the various life stories we are met with, and to be honest, this made me a bit frustrated towards the end. The tone of the novel, especially the ending, is that of disillusionment This, together with its complexity, made me feel quite ambiguous about it after having finished it. Part of me wanted to read it again to understand it better, another part of me wanted to never look at it again. It’s rather easy to read, but the significance of all the episodes are not necessarily easy to understand. Challenging in other words, and definitely different. It’s not my favourite cup of tea, but I’m glad to have read it.
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