The Glass Room: A Novel

Nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2009, this amazing novel kept me mesmerized for the couple of days it took me to read its 404 pages. I will never forget its impact or the fact that, when it came to the end and all the facets of the plot were pulled together with extraordinary skill, there were actual tears in my eyes. The story starts in Czechoslovakia in 1929 when an upper class newly married couple engage a world renowned architect to design a house for them . The house is constructed of glass, a work of art viewed as a symbol of modernity and a design for a bright future. As the years go by though, Germany is gaining power and Europeans experience uncomfortable changes. The young husband is a Jew although his wife is not but this put them and their young family in especial danger. This is just the barest outline of the plot however. The story is about a varied group of the individuals - their hopes, fears and emotions all brought to life in exquisite detail as they experience the fragility and horror of their times. The architecture of the house seems cold to some and so does the husband, who must make responsible decisions related to both his wife and his mistress. The author makes his inner turmoil real and I found it easy to relate to him and these two women in his life. As the dark clouds of Fascism approach, they must leave the house and the house itself becomes a character in the story as the occupants change through the years. However, it is the individual people and their stories that hold the plot together as they each embody a different world view of the times. There is the wealth of the husband which allows his small family with two young children to flee. There is the love the wife and the acceptance of her husband's frailties. There is the working class mistress who has to flee her surroundings in Austria with her young daughter as the Nazis move in. There is the wife's sophisticated friend who embodies the avant garde movement in culture and art and whose own story intersects with that of the family and of the glass house itself. The British author, Simon Mawer, puts all of this together with a spare and hauntingly beautiful use of language and several complex themes which made the experience of reading this book truly magnificent for me. I loved it for its sense of time and place, its deeply human characters and a unique view of history. Bravo to the author for bringing this book to the world!

This is a lovely, wonderfully written novel with a compelling story told in a beautiful setting. Despite the dark background of a looming Nazi threat, the reader is captivated by the lives of the characters who occupy the dazzling glass house. This is unlike any other book about this era that you have ever read and well worth the experience. I found myself putting the book down periodically so that I could make it last longer. The Glass Room would make a wonderful choice for book groups looking for a well-written novel with a good story that is also infinitely 'discussable'. Enjoy.

Simon Mawer's beautifully wrought novel evokes a time and place in a way rarely achieved by historical fiction writers (Thomas Flanagan comes to mind). The glass room is the eye on the world that witnesses life, love, horror, redemption. Mawer's story makes the universal intimate. Despite the coincidences that a number of readers have cavilled about, the story rings true and never manipulates or panders. Instead it tells us about a way of life and how that life was shattered by the forces of history. It is a powerful novel, relevant and immediate.

The author tells us in a Note at the beginning of this novel that the beautiful modern house that contains the Glass Room is not fictional. Here called the Landauer House in Mesto, it is in fact the Villa Tugendhat in Brno, completed in 1930; and, excellent and faithful though the descriptions of it are, some readers may like to look at Google Images to see what the exterior and the interior actually looked like. They can also ascertain that the real name of the architect, here called Rainer von Abt, was Mies van der Rohe, and the real owners of the house were Fritz Tugendhat (a textile magnate) and his wife Greta, who were BOTH Jewish: in the novel only the husband (Viktor) is Jewish, his wife (Liesel) is not. Well, we have been told in the Note that most of the characters in the novel are fictional, but that some of them are not. So, for instance, one member of Victor's circle is the armaments manufacturer Fritz Mandel who really existed (a converted Viennese Jew who nevertheless had close contacts with the Italian fascists and German Nazis), and Mandl was really married for a time to Eva Kiesler, better known as the sensational film star Hedy Lamarr, who in this novel is said to have had a brief lesbian relationship with Liesl closest friend, Hana Hanacova. When the Nazis confiscated the Villa Tugendhat, they rented it out to the aircraft manufacturer Walter Messerschmidt. This does happen in the book, but before that, the novel has the villa used as a Eugenics Research Centre, and the people working there are students of Nazi eugenics departments that really existed. Fritz Tugendhat, like Viktor Landauer, did die in 1958; and old Mrs Tugendhat did accept an invitation in 1967 (though in the novel Mawer has Liesel accept the invitation after Dubcek had become General Secretary in January 1968 and makes the actual visit take place after Dubcek's fall, which was in August 1968). I am unfortunately always troubled by such 'poetic licence', by wondering what is fact and what is fiction - not that that detracts in any way from the considerable quality of the novel. The cultural and political situations described in the book are real enough: the clash between tradition and modernity, the growing tension between Germans and Czechs in Czechoslovakia, the rising menace of Nazi Germany, the refugees pouring into Czechoslovakia after the Anschluss; then the German occupation; then the Russians arrive (a vivid chapter), and they did in fact stable their horses in the Villa Tugendhat. The novel then slightly conflates what happened to the Villa under communist rule: it first became a dance studio and then a rehabilitation centre for crippled children. Finally it becomes a piece of architectural heritage. Whether fictional or not, the characters and the relationships between them are well drawn. There is especially the uninhibited Hana, Liesel's best friend. Liesel, for all her modern cultural tastes, is much more conventional, though she m

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 Msto, 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 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 Msto. 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.