The Weight Of Numbers

Ambitious stuff here from Ings, straddling continents and eras in his sixth novel

By Daisy Beare

THE TITLE ABOVE may suggest a mathematical structure to this novel, but it’s utterly misleading. After a short prologue, the novel launches straight into a sombre alternative history of the last 60 years, and what a history.

Spiralling away from the separate events of the first moon landing and the death of a revolutionary leader in Mozambique, Ings brings us up to present day, but not without pausing on pretty much every area of life in between. Following the stories of three main protagonists, the narrative spans from the Blitz to the Communist revolution in Cuba; from the beginning of TV wrestling to the evolution of electro-convulsive therapy and doesn’t even stop there.

Although it may be hard to appreciate any connection between these disparate moments of history, the elusive movements of main protagonist Nick Jinks seem to offer some relief. He breezes in and out of the stories of the apparently random characters featured in each chapter, suggesting eventually that all these loose ends will be tied up. Yet when the climax finally arrives, it is deflated and Nick Jinks has once again vanished.

Does this affect the book as a whole? Well, of course, the disparate events stay disparate; the randomly chosen characters stay random, (which, when they do occasionally interlink without acknowledging each other, can be extremely frustrating) but I still hung on to the very last word. The skill of storytelling and beautiful style that encourages you to feel each heartbreak of every character keeps you glued to the pages, and the desperate need to moralise the events with a resolution drags your eyes to the next line.

I reached the last word and stared at the blank page ahead of me, understanding that I had read a pièce de résistance, but without having a clue how. Ings’ fragile web of history had me like a fly, and I would recommend this novel to everyone, especially those of you who like to be taken unawares by a masterpiece.