elenasquareeyes's review against another edition
3.0
A Spare Life begins in 1984 but the story crosses decades into the new millennium as Zlata and Srebra grow together and have to make choices about high school, university, and relationships. Lots of people in their lives, including their parents, presume they are mentally deficient because of their situation but both girls are smart and capable. It’s clear from the outset that if they weren’t conjoined twins they could’ve had their own interests, friends and lives if they weren’t attached to one another by a small bit of skin and a vein.
People naturally don’t get on all the time, no matter how close they are, and for Zlata and Srebra to never be able to have their own personal space from one another it’s clear to see the frustrations both girls have. However, A Spare Life is solely told from Zlata’s point of view and personally I would’ve liked it if there were chapters from Srebra’s point of view to see what she thought of her sister and to see if their ideas of one another aligned. Though naturally the girls go through every experience physically together, it’s clear that they’re attitudes and feelings towards things are different and they have different interests and passions too. A Spare Life covers every problem the conjoined twins could have, from the mundane – how to use the toilet – to the more adult – what to do when one of them wants to have sex.
The collapse of Yugoslavia and the various conflicts different nations had during that time is like background noise to Zlata and Srebra’s childhood and adolescence. As they make plans to go to university, Srebra is the one who is most interesting in what’s happening to their home and the people around them, constantly reading newspapers and watching the news. Naturally Zlata also hears about these things but she rarely pays attention. It is interesting to see how different prejudices play out from a Macedonian point of view and how some of the conflicts I’ve read about during my Read the World Project play out in the background.
I found A Spare Life tough going at times because it’s a truly bleak story and Zlata goes through so much heartbreak that it’s depressing but then there’s so much of it you become desensitised to it all. There’s the hardship of being a conjoined twin and how that impacts every part of their lives but then there’s a lot of death surrounding the two of them. Childhood friends, family, loved ones, so many people in their lives die! Honestly it gets kind of much and sure, some people go through a lot of personal tragedy but reading about it here almost became tedious especially as the ones dying were often the ones who actually treated Zlata and Srebra well and like they were their own people.
Perhaps intentionally I found A Spare Life a book of two halves. The first being their childhood to early adulthood in Macedonia and the second half being when they decide to go to London and try and have the operation that would separate the two of them. I did prefer the first half as there was often the sort of childlike naivety to big situations and while they experience on traumatic event when they’re young, it’s not until they’re adults that so much of the death and depressing things happen to them.
tokagelizard's review against another edition
challenging
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
1.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Death, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Grief and Bullying
Minor: Abortion, Xenophobia, and Suicidal thoughts
serendipitysbooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
A Spare Life tells the story of Macedonian conjoined twins Srebra and Zlata from childhood, through their decision to seek surgical separation in their early twenties, and beyond. It is set against the backdrop of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, and Macedonia’s independence. Obviously there were parallels but these were never belaboured.
The story is told from Zlata’s perspective and hers is an engaging voice. The daily realities of being conjoined were stark - toileting, being unable to get away from the person you were arguing with, compromising on what to study at university, the complicated realities of being the third person in a marriage and more. And then there were the difficulties of agreeing to seek separation and adjusting to life post-separation. However, the book does not dwell gratuitously or sensationally on this aspect. Conjoinedness is an integral part of the sisters’ story that is matter-of-factly dealt with, but it is not the entirety of their story.
The bleak, joyless, negative atmosphere in their family home (and also the wider community) was well depicted as were the intersecting reasons for it - poverty, an unhappy marriage, grief, the pressures of raising disabled children and the prejudice they faced, the legacy of communism, disillusionment due to political corruption and more. It made for disspiriting reading especially the parents lack of support for their daughters, the way they discouraged them and tried to tear them down.
After separation Zlata moves to London, studies migration studies and conducts research into the differences between national and translational writers. Lots of interesting food for thought about the migration process and it’s impacts here.
All in all a very satisfying literary novel which has a strong coming-of-age focus. It stands out from the pack due to its conjoined characters, Balkan setting and beautiful writing.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death and Ableism
treads1325's review
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
anchii4's review against another edition
1.0
Воопшто, ама воопшто не можам да сварам вакви книги. Изнаредени трагедија до трагедија, мислиш натпревар е ова. Абе, сите можни лоши судбини ги снајдоа ликовите. Бачиќ не и е рамна на авторкава. Мене ова ми немаше поента, јас навистина не можам да извадам порака од книгава. Толку интересна, оригинална идеја, а толку правецот на дејство (според мене) утнат! Можда е до мене, што знам, ама сакам се’ да е до некоја граница, малку да беше урамнотежена книгава, не да се трупа од лошо полошо константно! Малку усул хаха
thishannah's review against another edition
It's not often that a book makes me cry in public while reading it, but this book did. I felt so connected to Zlata, and so full of hope that good things might happen to her in life. The story also perfectly balanced the universal experience of being a person anywhere in any situation going through life's ups and downs with the very specific experience of living in a highly unusual situation in a very specific place and time. I learned more about Macedonia from this novel than from anything else I've read or watched, and I appreciated that Dimkovska did this deliberately (or so I assume from the parts that ruminated on the lives of emigre writers).
I will say that my attachment dipped somewhat in the last hundred-ish pages of the book, but not so much that I stopped caring. There was just not as much forward momentum pulling me through as there was for the majority of the book.
I saw that some have compared this novel to Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. I can see why, although I don't think they really have all that much in common. The main similarity, to me, is the urge I had while reading to want to talk about it with everyone in my life, and the frustration that nobody else I know has read this (I had plenty of friends to go through Ferrante Fever with me). So friends, please read this so we can weep about our emotions together!
Spoiler
At first, I wondered if the narrative was going to jump between Srebra's and Zlata's perspectives, but I'm really glad that it stuck with Zlata for the whole book--it gave the reader the feeling of Srebra's constant, too-intimate presence without ever really knowing her true thoughts.I will say that my attachment dipped somewhat in the last hundred-ish pages of the book, but not so much that I stopped caring. There was just not as much forward momentum pulling me through as there was for the majority of the book.
I saw that some have compared this novel to Ferrante's Neapolitan novels. I can see why, although I don't think they really have all that much in common. The main similarity, to me, is the urge I had while reading to want to talk about it with everyone in my life, and the frustration that nobody else I know has read this (I had plenty of friends to go through Ferrante Fever with me). So friends, please read this so we can weep about our emotions together!
annieinthearchives's review
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The story and idea behind it were good and I really wanted to love it but there was something about the writing or the pacing that didn’t really work for me. Also, it felt way too over dramatic towards the end.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, and Ableism
jeeleongkoh's review
4.0
It makes for grim reading, this 490-page novel by Macedonian novelist Lidija Dimkovska (b. 1971). The relentless poverty, the constant cruelty, the grinding disappointments, the numerous deaths. It follows a pair of twin girls, conjoined at the head before the break-up of Yugoslavia through the birth of the Republic of Macedonia, taking in its epic span an immigrant's life in London. Yet the grimness is compelling for me for a number of reasons. I do not know much about the conditions of life in post-Communist Balkans, and this novel paints in a vivid, but never showy, manner the ordinary grayness of it all. I must also confess to a morbid fascination with the phenomenon of conjoined twins, and this novel describes the many aspects of life that such a phenomenon must affect, from walking to going to the bathroom to studying to dating to getting married, and having sex; no part of life is left untouched, and so the reader live through it all with Zlata and Sreba. Then there are the more objective reasons for the compulsive read that the novel is. The friendship and enmity between sisters. The love and hatred between parent and child. The connective tissue between states and peoples, and the separation, the wider political theme that the twins gesture towards but are never simplified into symbols of. There is only one point in the novel when I felt a misstep on the novelist's part. The story is told throughout from Zlata's point of view. She is sensitive, poetic, religious, self-pitying, fallible, in other words, wholly sympathetic. But when she insists on returning to Macedonia to give birth to her own twins and thereby causes the death of a beloved character, her action repulsed me, and I could never feel the same way for her again.
To write her Master's thesis in literature in London, Zlata interviews many émigré writers. What Dimkovska writes here resonates powerfully with me:
"With each conversation, I grasped again and again that we both are, and are not, born as citizens. It's not only the soil upon which we were born that defines us, but all the ground we've trod, all the air we've breathed, all the people we've met, all the languages in which we've tested our power of transmutation. The person who writes is half chameleon, half stone. Before he dies, a worm in his soul says in his mother tongue: "Who are you? Who were you?" He dies before answering the question. The émigré writer has no answer to that question."
To write her Master's thesis in literature in London, Zlata interviews many émigré writers. What Dimkovska writes here resonates powerfully with me:
"With each conversation, I grasped again and again that we both are, and are not, born as citizens. It's not only the soil upon which we were born that defines us, but all the ground we've trod, all the air we've breathed, all the people we've met, all the languages in which we've tested our power of transmutation. The person who writes is half chameleon, half stone. Before he dies, a worm in his soul says in his mother tongue: "Who are you? Who were you?" He dies before answering the question. The émigré writer has no answer to that question."