The tragedy of a life not lived

“He leaned in to kiss me. And when he did, something inside me reoriented itself, my world softly tipping into his direction, as if he himself were the sea.” This is the story of Ivona and Vlaho, one that aches from the offset. The two fall in love as students against the backdrop of postwar Croatia, with the promise of their lives ahead of them. Ten years later, divorced yet longing for one another, they’ve kept up a delicate connection, despite Vlaho’s new partner. But when a fourth person enters their orbit, buried feelings resurface, threatening to unravel everything.

Lidija Hilje’s Slanting Towards the Sea is ostensibly a love story. It is poignant and evocative, exploring first love with an intensity so raw that reading feels like pressing on a bruise. Written from Ivona’s perspective, it moves between youth and the present day. The past is infused with nostalgia and unlimited potential for happiness and adventure. Once in the present, though, things change. Hilje gives us the facts of Ivona’s life, only for us to discover they’re anything but. Her world is ever-shifting, the ground slippery with concealments, from both Vlaho and us.

Potential is what this novel is about, and how easily it can slip through our fingers. Like the dilemma of Sylvia Plath’s fig tree, Ivona discovers the fatal crux of womanhood: the constant balance of desires with society’s demand for self-sacrifice. Surrounded by men – Vlaho; her ailing father; her demanding brother; her new love interest Asier – she wonders about how life could have been: “Had the beans scattered in a different way, had I been born somewhere else, or just a decade later.” At every turn, she seems thwarted, and thwarts herself, giving up what might have been a life-changing study trip to remain with Vlaho; leaving him for reasons only known to herself and his mother; pulled home time and time again, in spite of her untapped potential.

Slanting Towards the Sea is a contemporary tragedy, but not for the reasons that are at first apparent. The demise of Ivona and Vlaho’s relationship is devastating; but it pales in comparison to the real heartbreak, which is Ivona’s inability to exist free of the constraints imposed by herself and others. It’s a haunting novel that will leave you feeling bereft – of a relationship, but even more of a life not lived.