Home

19 hrs. 20 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Oksana Butuzova

Narrator Tatyana Telegina

Description

There is no place in the world that a person sees and thinks about more often than their own home. For most people, this notion is clear-cut: a reliable foundation, solid walls, a roof over one’s head—protecting from rain, wind, and heat. A person builds a home by setting their life against the elements, fighting them to achieve victory. Or is all this an illusion? And then life and the elements are parts of a single whole, depicted in a surprisingly precise and vivid way in the novel.

The theme of the house is close to absolutely everyone. The feeling of home is one of the oldest. It appeared long before people learned to build. A home is everything that a person creates around themselves and at their own discretion. It is a fenced-off space that emphasizes their individuality, the shell of comfort that helps them overcome difficulties and inconveniences of the big world, presented metaphorically in the novel.

One could say that the author creates their own world and settles into it, involving the reader in this process too.

The novel takes place in an alternative reality, and at first it only seems that it is the reality of a computer game like “The Sims.” In fact, it is an alternative world where people appear already grown up and, once they appear, are forced to live by the rules of rabid liberalism: here nothing is given for free; everyone can earn as much as they manage; those who can’t survive are eliminated (they are taken away in an unknown direction in a machine labeled “Caution, people”); however, perfect control also operates here: it is impossible to cheat or steal, and all acquisitions must be made in accordance with the rules. No matter what—an ideal liberal model in its most radical form.