The main character, the student of political science at Kaunas University Darius Puras, is best described by such a verdict – an almost absolute spiritual emptiness. Nothing actually has become his creed: neither Catholicism, cultivated as a protest while being a student, neither the practices of eastern meditation taken up while studying, nor and all the more, the ideology of the Soviet regime. Even freedom, as though fallen from the sky, is understood as just an opportunity to run away from the grey and depressing mode of life and daily routine – to the West, to that concept there, where the brilliance of the supermarkets and the material well-being of people stun Darius Puras. And not only that! There is no geist of European culture.
So we can see how slow, indecisive and confused of this youngster’s journey will be to himself; how devoid of substance is his self-creation. But it is inevitable, because emptiness and nothing is spread out within him and explodes from inside. The feeling of insignificance and decadence inspires his first step – his first independent act of will…
Justinas Kubilius