The Glass Room: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

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DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation, so she has more tolerance for them than most. When one of them goes missing she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. But her path leads her to more than a missing friend ...

Some years later, when the house is owned by the Communist state and the Glass Room is used as a gymnasium for rehabilitating child victims of polio, a doctor, Tomáš, and physiotherapist, Zdenka begin an affair. – Zdenka loves him, wants to think of their future together, he does not. He denies history, claims that memory and imagination are the same thing, does not admit the past or the future into his thinking, only the present. Though he has thought to himself that he loves her, in fact he prefers disengagement. Tomáš& Zdenka attend a polio conference in Paris. It is bright, colorful, free. They make love a lot. On returning, he seems cold, is unwilling to commit to a future withher. She suspects there is another woman, and asks that they break it off for a while. 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". This book features the events that occur in and around an architectural marvel of a house in what was then Czechoslovakia, commissioned by Viktor and Liesel Landauer shortly after their marriage in 1929. Built in the 1930s, it contained the titular glass room, as well as an onyx wall, and a modern look using glass and steel. The couple’s life is at first idyllic, but is soon marred by martial dysfunction, infidelity, and betrayal. The Landauers are in a Swiss villa, enjoying swimming and sailing. L. has growing suspicions that V. is having an affair. She finds V. not in bed andoverhears him & Kata having sex. She hints about this to V., but later confronts Kata.She was suspicious from the outset. She wantsdetails, and Kata tells all. But Kata assures L. she did not come seeking himin Město. She tells Kata of her reduced sex drive. Kata is in love with V. Eventually L. confronts Viktor.

It’s nice that we have Joe’s internal thoughts as well. They reveal information about the character, his relationship with Vera—“You’re my eyes and my ears, Joe. I’m a simple soul; I can’t talk and observe at the same time.”--and about Vera herself as she is perceived by others. In fact, the way in which we are introduced to the supporting characters is very well done. Rather than the author introduce them to us, many of them introduce themselves to another character.

As in all of the books, one of the most enjoyable features is the relationship of Vera to the various members of her team and the way she manipulates and uses them, especially her sergeant, Joe. Cleeves' characterizations paint masterful portraits of Vera and the team and she allows us to eavesdrop on the interior dialogues of Vera and Joe which gives added depth to their relationship. 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. Mawer is a fine historian and appears well versed on the invasion of Europe during the second World War. The impact on the Landauers and Kata is horrifically described and shivers ran up and down my spine as I was reading. The Glass Room follows the tradition of Rebecca and Slade House, by this I mean that the humans are just bit players and the inanimate object it the star. In this case, as the title suggests it is a glass room which is the centrepiece of a modern house built for a up and coming Czech couple in the 1920’s. The power of the glass room is that it reflects (no pun intended) the fragility of the characters and when someone enters the room a secret is usually revealed. Not only is the historical setting, 1920 – 1990, real but the house actually does exist in Brno.On Honeymoon in Venice in 1928 Vikor and Lisel Landauer face a new world when they meet brilliant architect Rainer Von Abt. Soon, on a hillside near a provincial Czech town, the Landauer house with its celebrated Glass Room will become a modernist masterpiece of travertine floors and onyx walls, filled with light and optimism. But as Victor is Jewish, when Nazi troops arrive the family must flee. The house slips from hand to hand, Nazi to Soviet and finally to Czechoslovak state. And if the walls could talk this would be their story......

I've given this book three stars, but really it's a combination of two and four. Two for Mawer's writing, which is frequently heavy-handed, riddled with cliched foreboding (gathering storm clouds on the horizon--give me a break!) and sledgehammer symbolism. At times it seems the author is trying to re-write THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING: there's so much sexual huffing, puffing, and general melodrama taking place that it becomes comic. And coincidences? Full of 'em. Zdenka agrees to dance for Tomáš, enacting Ondine's tale to Ravel's pf composition. He is aroused by her nymph-like beauty and grace, and they make love in the Glass Room. Viktor plans for the future. Liesel, his wife (and the one who invited her husband’s mistress to come and live with them and be their nanny) resists thinking ahead, would rather continue to drift, to live as they are. But this is impossible, with the rise of Nazism. Viktor’s planning gets them out of Czechoslovakia just in time. The family survives to begin a new life in the US. Hana comes to Stahl in a storm. She interrogates him about what is being done to the Jews, has heard rumors, are they being sent to concentration camps? He says we have to find a solution. She tells him her husband is a Jew, and that she is pregnant with his child. She insults him ("killing babies is in your nature"), he strikes her, soon rapes her. He takes her home, she needs financial help (her accounts have been frozen), wants to keep the baby. The last person to live in the house and subsequently the glass room is turned into a gymnasium for children afflicted by polio is a physicist and, as the pattern repeats itself, The glass room is a place where he confesses some of his past mistakes.But one should, of course, enter the book by the main entrance, via the plot. Wealthy Jewish car manufacturer Viktor Landauer and his gentile wife Liesel have been made a gift of land by Liesel's parents to build their own house. "Something good and solid," Liesel's father advises. But Viktor doesn't want something good and solid: what he wants is something modern. And what he gets is a modernist masterpiece, Der Glasraum, the Glass Room. In the 1920's, wealthy, Jewish Czech businessman Viktor Landauer and his bride, Liesel, hire German avantgarde architect, Rainer von Abt, to design an ultra-modern home for them. An unconventional "upside down" blueprint creates space from a house, rather than creating a house from space. Von Abt considers himself a poet of form, space, and light. These revolutionary ideas usurp the notion of ornamentation. Gables, pillars, columns, turrets, and whatnot are oppressively rooted in the past, and invoke churches and museums. The Landauer House will transcend the new optimism of Central Europe with its straight lines and understatement. The Glass Room, by British author Simon Mawer, was published in 2009 by Other Press in the United States and Little Brown in the United Kingdom. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009. Laník gives a tour of the house to an official from the planning department. He disparages V. Later the Landauers in Switzerland learn the house has been confiscated bythe Nazi"Protectorate" or Bohemia and Moravia. L. weepsand Kata comforts her.

Another recurring theme is the differences in the way that people think about time, and their awareness of past, present and future. Far from being an abstract concern, it affects their lives profoundly. V. recalls seeing Benno when they were serving in the military leading up to WWI. They were like robots. L. and Kata play with their children. Martin is 5 y/o. V. longs for Kata, writes her anote. What was your first impression of Rainer von Abt? What did you think of his minimalist approach? Why do you think it appealed to Liesel and Viktor?I loved the setting for this book on an isolated and rugged stretch of the Northumbrian coast. The story itself mirrors a classic crime novel—a captive number of suspects in an old remote, rambling house, several with a motive for murder. The way in which people regard each other, often completely wrongly, is woven into the narrative with insight, as is the world of writers and publishers. A well plotted and paced story with believable characters has enough twists to send the reader (this one anyway) in every direction but the right one. 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] A few years later, domestic life includes nurse Liba for the children. V. wants the children to be citizens of the world. Anti-Jewish practices and laws are arising in Germany, Jewish doctors cannot treat non-Jews and new miscegenation laws are in effect, etc. V. is taking note of the future problems this might cause for him if this spreads to his country. His children would be Mischlinger (half-breeds). V. thinks longingly about Kata.