The Glass Room

The Glass Room is a novel about a house, a real and remarkable one, although the story and characters are fictional. It begins with the return of Liesel Landauer, now elderly and blind, to the house that she, a gentile, shared with her husband Viktor, a prosperous Jewish manufacturer of fine automobiles. The Landauer House, which sits on a hill overlooking the Czechoslovakian city of Mĕsto, was designed for the young couple by a famous Viennese architect in the 1920s, and was a classic work of modern design. The centerpiece of the house is the Glass Room, which has large plate glass windows and is partitioned by a wall made of onyx that changes in appearance with the position of the sun. Mawer describes the Glass Room early in the show more book, as the Landauers see it for the first time:

"It had become a palace of light, light bouncing off the chrome pillars, light refulgent on the walls, light glistening on the dew in the garden, light reverberating from the glass. It as though they stood inside a crystal of salt."

The Glass Room becomes a place where anything and everything is possible, as previous structural and cultural restraints are lifted. The wealthy and sophisticated couple embrace their new home to the fullest, using it frequently to host friends and business colleagues. Liesel's best friend, Hana, a irreverent, beautiful and sexually hungry married woman, is a frequent visitor who provides vitality and spark to the setting.

However, changes are occurring in Europe that darken and threaten the couple's idyllic existence. Hitler's national socialism spreads through and beyond nearby Germany, and the livelihood of Jews in Czechoslovakia becomes slowly but progressively more difficult. The Landauers initially ignore the warnings, as their wealth and influence insulate them from the growing menace. The couple agrees to take in a young woman who has been forced to flee from Vienna, a woman who is well known to Viktor. Finally the couple decides to flee their beloved house and country, but by the time they decide to do so, the Germans have already occupied Czechoslovakia. Hana and her Jewish husband, however, decide to stay in Mĕsto.

The novel then alternates between the lives of the Landauers and the new occupants, leading up to Liesel's eventual return to the Landauer House.

This was a brilliant and near-perfect novel that covers Europe before and during World War II and the subsequent decline in European culture, and includes rich descriptions of architecture, art and music. Love, infidelity and devotion are infused throughout the book, but ultimately the main story and character is the Landauer House with its Glass Room, and the effects it has on its inhabitants and visitors.

I suppose the highest praise I could give this novel is that I would like to start reading it again from the beginning. It is easily the best of the 2009 Booker Prize longlisted books I've read so far, and would be a deserving winner of the award, in my opinion. show less

Every once in a while, if you're lucky, you come across beautiful writing about the frailty and strength of human relationships. This is one of those lucky moments for me.

The house of glass that was designed and built for a rich Czech couple was the epitome of modern art. They fill it with beautiful art, music and friends. But the glass house allows us to see what they try to hide, an unhappy marriage, loneliness , insecurities, and still, love. As the world starts to crumble into chaos with Hitler's invasion across Europe, the family flee the country.

Over time, there other inhabitants of this glass house. Caretakers turn to hoarding goods and selling them on the black market. A Nazi scientific laboratory where people are brought in show more and measured, to see if Jews had specific physical measurements. Russians turn it into a children's hospital for physiotherapy.

And through all this time, the glass house continues to provide us with a microscope into the lives of all who live in or pass through its panes. We're given an insight into a man who is detached from his family but becomes infatuated with a woman he meets by chance, his wife who compartmentalizes her feelings and coordinates a unique living arrangement to keep her family together, a woman who lives as a free-spirit flitting from one lover to another...until one sends her to a concentration camp in Ravensbruck, an actress who seeks to escape from her jealous husband in order to return to the silver screen, and a woman who turns to a different career once her dreams where shattered by a broken ankle.

Time passes, governments come and go, lives change, and through it all, the glass house remains. show less

This is a book about modernism. It is constructed, rather like a Cubist painting, from many short scenes. Each scene has its own point in time and its own character's point of view and each is beautifully crafted and nuanced. It would almost be possible to shuffle these, like a pack of cards, and come up with a different book but the same story. The one constant is the glass room, a constant that is as hollow and empty as it is striking and attractive. The duality between the hollow and the attractive lies at the heart of many scenes and underpins the eroticism that Mawer deploys throughout. The characters are all compelling, alive and original. The story is subtle, quirky and ingenious. Even the reliance, at points, on rather show more heavy-handed co-incidence appears to fit the whole. show less

Set against the shifting backdrop of early 20th-century Europe, The Glass Room tells the story of Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a wealthy couple who commission a visionary architect to build a striking modern home of glass and steel. The house, designed as a symbol of openness, beauty, and progressive ideals, stands in stark contrast to the increasingly complicated and fragile nature of their personal lives.
As love, desire, and betrayal begin to erode their relationship, the political climate across Europe darkens. With the looming threat of World War II, the Landauers are ultimately forced to abandon their dream home. The house itself becomes a silent witness to history, passing through the hands of various occupants—scientists, show more soldiers, and officials—each leaving their mark and reflecting the turbulence of the 20th century.
This is a thrilling and beautifully written novel, filled with vivid descriptions that bring both the characters and the iconic house to life. The blend of emotional drama and historical change, along with themes of love and betrayal, makes it a compelling and memorable read. show less

This is no ordinary read. Coming from a Jewish family I found this story both compelling and deeply disturbing. It takes place in what is now the Czech Republic, during the years between the 1930s and 1990. The pre-war years, the growing influence of Germany and the anti-semitism, and the way class determined what happened to people are all artfully described. I found myself deeply connected to the story of the Landauers, a wealthy family that built a magnificent dream home in the years before World War II and then following the different ways that home is used as years pass. The characters are complex, believable and drawn with great depth. Even an evil Nazi scientist comes across somewhat sympathetically.

However, there were aspects of show more the book that bothered me. The focus wanders. It seems to start as a story of a family, that then gets dropped midway through the book. Then for a while, it feels like a book about the house itself. The stories do eventually get reconnected by the end, but to me, in less than a completely satisfying way. Just a little too neatly, and therefore not quite believably.

The other aspect that bothered me were the descriptions of sexual activity. They often seemed inappropriately descriptive, given the overall subject matter and tone of the book. They were also VERY male, as though the author were working out some of his own fantasies through the characters. To me they seemed unnecessary and distracting. show less

This is no ordinary read. Coming from a Jewish family I found this story both compelling and deeply disturbing. It takes place in what is now the Czech Republic, during the years between the 1930s and 1990. The pre-war years, the growing influence of Germany and the anti-semitism, and the way class determined what happened to people are all artfully described. I found myself deeply connected to the story of the Landauers, a wealthy family that built a magnificent dream home in the years before World War II and then following the different ways that home is used as years pass. The characters are complex, believable and drawn with great depth. Even an evil Nazi scientist comes across somewhat sympathetically.

However, there were aspects of show more the book that bothered me. The focus wanders. It seems to start as a story of a family, that then gets dropped midway through the book. Then for a while, it feels like a book about the house itself. The stories do eventually get reconnected by the end, but to me, in less than a completely satisfying way. Just a little too neatly, and therefore not quite believably.

The other aspect that bothered me were the descriptions of sexual activity. They often seemed inappropriately descriptive, given the overall subject matter and tone of the book. They were also VERY male, as though the author were working out some of his own fantasies through the characters. To me they seemed unnecessary and distracting. show less

One of the first things I noticed about this book was that the writing style reminded me of other books I had read that were translated from a language other than English, but this book was written in English, not translated. That Simon Mawer's style mimicked a novel in translation, yet was really tremendously well controlled is just one of the aspects that make this book stand out from other historical novels. For The Glass Room is an historical novel and both the sometimes subtle presence and sometimes ironic impact of historical context is integral to the story.
The story starts simply enough, a Czech couple, the Landauers, on their honeymoon journey to Italy, but before they arrive there they visit the grave of the Bride's brother show more who died in the Great War. In just a few pages we already have some of the themes: history, endings and beginnings, death and life. But this novel is just as much about the new house that is yet to be built on a plot of land that was a present from the bride's parents. It is this house, designed by the great modern architect Rainer von Abt, that will have as its centerpiece the "Glass Room" of the title. The story spans the rest of the twentieth century and involves living, loving, tragedy and more than one metamorphosis for the "Glass Room" at the heart of the story.
In addition to the smooth almost glass-like writing style I was impressed by the structure of the book as the story gathers speed, develops the central characters, provides suspense and deftly links the various subplots. Early in the novel the architect, Rainer von Abt, tells the Landauers that:
"'I am a poet of space and form. Of light' -- it seemed to be no difficulty at all to drag another quality into his aesthetic -- 'of light and space and form. Architects are people who build walls and floors and roofs. I capture and enclose the space within.'"(p 16)
The author is also a poet whose aesthetic provides similar form for this story. Yes, this is the exciting era of modern architecture, of the new era represented by artists like Mondrian and others who were establishing "de stijl". The world is constantly changing and the artists, the architects, and musicians like Janacek and Kapralova are leading the way. The political world of the story is in turmoil with changes, including another war and its aftermath, lead the Landauers to new ventures, places, and loves as the plot unfolds. However, the key to the story remains the haunting spirit of the"Glass Room".
"She dreams. She dreams of cold. She dreams of glass and light, the Glass Room washed with reflection, and the cool view across the city of rooftops, the cold view through the trees, the crack of snow beneath your boots. She dreams of a place that is without form or substance, that exists only in the manner of dreams, shifting and insubstantial, diffuse, diverse;" show less