The semantics of the image of a house in the novel of Lena Eltang «Other drums»

The character-storyteller in the epistolary novel by Lena Eltang «Other drums» [Drugie barabany] is Kostas Kayris, an immigrant from Lithuania to Portugal. The circumstances of his private life (the absence of the father, cold relationship with his mother, homelessness experience, non-realised love for Aunt Zoe) and historical events (the collapse of the USSR and the hostile attitude of Lithuanians to everything Russian) cause the crisis of self-identity and existential sense of being lost in the reality. The basic plot event in the novel is the inheritance of the house in Portugal under the will of the favourite aunt and then its loss. In narration, the house is shown not only as an architectural construction, a place to live but also as an image of life in the consciousness of the character. To understand the semantics of the house image, it is significant to reveal the associative connections in the consciousness of the character. First of all, the house is related to a woman who is fascinating, but inaccessible to possession. Secondly, the house is a memory metaphor, a repository of the past into which Kostas plunges. The semantics of the image of the house is revealed in the system of spatial oppositions: house - pseudo-house, house - prison. The warmth of the house in Lisbon is opposed to the cold of habitation (pseudo-houses) in the homeland in Lithuania, and then in prison. One more significant spatial opposition: the static character and durability of the house against the fluidity of the river Tagus where it is located. The house in the novel embodies ideal life, dream and is linked to sensations of stability, security of existence. However, the narration about finding a house turns around the understanding of its loss. The author of the novel raises the question whether it is possible to hide in the House from life's difficulties, to drop out of historical time, social connections, plunging in the world of one’s consciousness? It appears to be impossible for some reasons: first, the reality embodied in the house accepts the person only temporarily and does not give an eternal residence permit; secondly, the hero-immigrant himself is of keeping the property, of becoming the full owner. At last, he is not free from the desire to understand himself, to understand the other people, and the search for answers inevitably leads to the road and that means from the house . The house loss is compensated by the return to writing in a situation of homelessness and restrictions of physical freedom. The world of letters becomes alternative to the house, opens «other possibilities». The house-language, which in the end is chosen by the hero-immigrant, unites the opposite values of the house (mastered, his life) and the road that implies the movement beyond the autistic and self-contained existence to the other (addressee), and the search for the basis for his identity and self-determination.

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