The Glass Room: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

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Mawer, an Englishman living in Italy, has written this novel as though it were a translation, endowing his prose with a patina of Old World formality that sounds all the more romantic. He claims he doesn't know Czech or German, but his characters speak both fluently, and his attention to foreign languages enriches every episode. These are, after all, people caught in the violent confluence of political upheaval; choosing to speak Czech or German or English becomes a matter of resistance or collusion or hope. And at crucial moments, certain foreign words illuminate the story in poignant ways, as when a Czech resident of the Landauers' old house realizes that "the word he used for room, pokoj, can also mean peace, tranquillity, quiet. So when he said 'the glass room' he was also saying 'the glass tranquillity.' " Je mi to opravdu líto, ale tohle prostě není kniha pro mě. Kdybych to věděla, tak jsem si ji půjčila z knihovny a nekupovala jí. A teď nevím, jestli se mám ještě do nějakého Mawera pouštět (ale třeba to časem s něčím z knihovny ještě zkusím.)

The Glass Room[‘s] poetic success is to remind us of two great gilt-edged ironies: that whatever is held to be the height of modernity is already en route to the museum, and that even ‘cold’ art is the embodiment of its maker’s passion – one that can prove contagious.”— The Financial Times

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The novel mirrors the architecture: magnificent and sprawling, yet contained, the expansive room with glass sides reveals all. The motivations of the characters are not hidden; flaws and beauty are apparent. If this book were a piece of music, it might be a piano sonata in several movements, for music rings throughout the house and this book. Special note is made of a young composer, Vitezslava Kaprálová, who died at 25 years of age the day France fell to the Germans in the world-encompassing European conflict of the 20th century. A different take on WWII Nazi occupation than I’ve read before. The main character is basically a house; a massive, uber-modern, glass and chrome house in Czechoslovakia. A young, wealthy honeymooning couple has it built shortly after their wedding but once Nazis invade they must emigrate and abandon their home. It’s later taken over by various factions and people. Hana, Eve, and Comrade Laník arrive to tour the House. Zdenka wonders how well Tomáš knows Eve. Tomáš and Zdenka are left together alone to decide whether to resume their relationship.

In September 2009 The Glass Room was one of six novels shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. [2] It was named a best book of 2009 by The Economist, The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, London Evening Standard, The Observer, and Slate.com. [ citation needed] It was favourably reviewed by The Washington Post. [3] Mawer has recast the original owner of the house as a sophisticated automobile magnate named Viktor Landauer. An idealist determined to throw off the trappings of religion, aristocracy and nationalism, he's prone to grand slogans about the future and eager to enlist a mesmerizing young architect from Germany, "a poet of space and structure" who shares his sense of the exciting new world. "Ever since Man came out of the cave he has been building caves around him," Mies tells Viktor. "But I wish to take Man out of the cave and float him in the air. I wish to give him a glass space to inhabit." Viktor finds these ideas captivating, no matter how expensive. This is the "dream that went with the spirit of a brand new country in which they found themselves," he thinks, "a state in which being Czech or German or Jew would not matter, in which democracy would prevail and art and science would combine to bring happiness to all people." The home commissioned by automobile maker Victor Landauer and his wife Liesel in 1929 has as a focal point The Glass Room. It is a house built by Modernist architect Rainer Von Abt, who follows Victor's insistence that the house reflect something new rather than continue the tradition of the old, ornamental style that was prevalent among the European wealthy of the time. It sits above a town on a hill in Czechoslovakia, with spectacular views, and it offered "the most remarkable experience of modern living," a theme that runs throughout the novel and throughout time. The story (without going into much plot detail here) follows the lives of the Landauers while they are both in and away from the house, having to leave Czechoslovakia because of the Nazi occupation and Hitler's actions against the Jews. While times change, the house and the Glass Room remain, serving as vehicles through which history plays out through several regimes -- the Nazis, the Soviets, and then through the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Landauer House was built in Czechoslovakia in the early 1900s by a revolutionary architect, and it is this house which the novel is constructed around. Each character that lives or visits is connected to the house and their stories are played out inside its walls. As well as characters, the history and events leading up to and post holocaust are contained within. From being a house built for a affluent Jewish family, to becoming a labratory for Nazi science, each moment in Nazi history is represented by the house.I love the concept of this story, as I have a fascination with houses and their past occupants and histories and this book fitted me perfectly. It started out quite slow and took me a few chapters to engage with the characters whom I didn’t really care for and yet I couldn’t put the book down because I was intrigued by their stories and the house. It is summer 1941. Hana writes L. to tell of meeting Stahl, his research, etc. V. is treating Kata formally. Kata has swum with the kids. L. dries her off and feels stirrings of desire. Kata wants to emigrate with the family. Hana comes to Z., confesses that she had a baby daughter while in the camp, a baby that was taken away and that she never saw again. Z. comforts her. This book is about many things. It is a book about a culture that slips from decadence into decline, about the winds of war, about anti-Semitism. But it is also about marriage, love, art, architecture, betrayal and loneliness. Most of all, the book itself is a work of art. How can one not marvel at the following description: "It had become a palace of light, light bouncing off the chrome pillars, light refulgent on the walls ... It was as though they stood inside a crystal of salt."