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The Glass Room

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 3,624 ratings · 643 reviews

Honeymooners Viktor and Liesel Landauer are filled with the optimism and cultural vibrancy of central Europe of the 1920s when they meet modernist architect Rainer von Abt. He builds for them a home to embody their exuberant faith in the future, and the Landauer House becomes an instant masterpiece. Viktor and Liesel, a rich Jewish mogul married to a thoughtful, modern gen...more

Paperback, 404 pages

Published April 22nd 2010 by Abacus (first published February 2009)

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Jan 09, 2013 William rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 21-ce, uk

I disliked this book so much that I stopped at page 133. My GR friend Karen is right about Mawer troweling on the symbolism. It irks one. This book was poorly edited, or perhaps the author wouldn't let changes be made. Every single problem I will point to below could have been addressed by a good editor, but for some reason wasn't.

There's this sense in the early going of the intoxicating modernity of late 20s/early 30s Czechoslovakia, a new state created after The Great War by the victorious Al...more I disliked this book so much that I stopped at page 133. My GR friend Karen is right about Mawer troweling on the symbolism. It irks one. This book was poorly edited, or perhaps the author wouldn't let changes be made. Every single problem I will point to below could have been addressed by a good editor, but for some reason wasn't.

There's this sense in the early going of the intoxicating modernity of late 20s/early 30s Czechoslovakia, a new state created after The Great War by the victorious Allies. The problem is that Mawer only tells us that the setting is modern etc., he does not show us. This strikes me as lazy writing and it positively grates on one after a while. Moreover, Mawer's fascination with the period seems largely the product of a particularly shallow present-day nostalgia: its retrospection without the resonance.

There are also these problems of characterization that are like hitting a pothole at 100 MPH. When Liesel meets her close friend Hana for the first time the interaction between the two is jarring. I remember thinking "How in the world did these two ever end up as friends?" It seemed so implausible. In other words, suspension of disbelief is compromised, the dream of the narrative interrupted. Moreover, Viktor, Liesel's husband, starts off as an agreeable sort of chap, but then from one scene to the next turns consistently surly. This is good writing?

Alas, I have more.

Mawer actually employs the cliché--"the storm on the horizon"--as a means of alluding to the rise of the Nazis. How far are we here from Snoopy's "It was a dark and stormy night"? Now, with regard to the history of this period I don't think any half-educated reader needs much historical background on the build up to World War II. But that doesn't stop Mawer from ladling on the asides about the Treaty of Versailles et al. Granted, historical novels require the writer to provide a certain amount of context, but I don't see why Mawer couldn't have handled this in a note as, say, Robert Graves would have done (see Count Belisarius; I, Claudius) instead of interjecting cumbersome history lessons into the text.

The story could have been immeasurably strengthened with a good jolt of metaphor. However, this key tool of narrative seems not to be among Mawer's gear. I keep trying to think why he might have wished to avoid metaphor, perhaps there was a structural reason, but I've yet to discover a rationale. Metaphor could only have helped. Lastly, there's the sex. Textual descriptions of sex never work. That's because they are text and not flesh; though they might titillate this is something I've always seen as a form of cheating. Like Woody Allen's example of doing standup before a drunken audience. Of course, they're going to laugh.... As Martin Amis says in The Pregnant Widow, I paraphrase, sex is both indescribable and it populates the planet.

Not recommended.(less)

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Feb 07, 2013 Kinga rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jeez-louise, jewish, wwii, czech

This book was bootleg. I was rather disappointed. This was nominated? To what? Booker Prize?
Everything in it was just old recycled ideas. And the Glass Room metaphor got very old very quickly. I wanted to scream: Yes, we get it! Enough!

Don't you just love when the author assumes you're mentally handicapped?

But I threw one more star because the character of Hana. She made that Nazi guy go down on her and then PAY her for it. My girl.

UPDATE:

Ha. I have just seen the author of this book tweet: "Why...more

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Mar 02, 2012 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to James by: Max

Shelves: historical-fiction, lincoln-park-group

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...more 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 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, and at the center of the room an onyx wall that is magnificent in its simplicity. The story spans the rest of the twentieth century and involves living, loving, parting, 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;"
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Nov 11, 2012 Cynthia Haggard rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

THE GLASS ROOM by Simon Mawrer is the story of a fabulous house built in Czechoslovakia in the late 1920s for a young couple. When the Nazis took over Austria in 1938, the couple fled to Switzerland with their young family, because the husband was Jewish. Subsequently, they relocated to the United States.

But the book is not about the couple who commissioned the house. Rather, it is about the house itself. So after the main characters disappear in the middle of France in around 1942, we are yanke...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Richard Burger rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not sure why some reviewers found The Glass Room ponderous or cliched. I was mesmerized by this beautifully told story revolving around the Glassraume, a Bauhaus-style home set on top of a hill, the main feature of which is a large room with walls of glass that overlooks the city. It also features an onyx wall that changes colors as the sun sets. These things sound simple and straightforward, but the author makes them appear magical, and places us right there in the room; we can touch the gl...more

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Sep 24, 2010 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010

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.

It took me a long time to get into the book because most of the characters are quite like the house: cold and flat. Also, it’s odd to...more

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May 31, 2010 Ti rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-sent-to-me, my-2010-must-reads

The Short of It:

The Glass Room is a sophisticated, highly stylized work of art.

The Rest of It:

In central Europe during the 1920′s, newlyweds, Viktor and Liesel Landauer meet acclaimed architect, Rainer von Abt. A modernist of his time, he agrees to build the them a house like no other. One designed with sharp angles, wide, open spaces and a room made of glass. Viktor, quite the modernist himself, is taken with the idea. A room made of glass? How exquisite. Liesel on the other hand, must be convi...more

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Nov 19, 2011 Philip rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In his novel, The Glass Room, Simon Mawer starts with a picture of privilege. Through that he explores human relationships, families, history, sexuality and change, to list just a few of the elements and themes that feature. Not only does he blend these and other penetrating ideas, he also consistently and utterly engages the reader, draws the observer in so effectively that sometimes the experience is participatory. The Glass Room is a novel that succeeds on so many levels that it becomes hard...more In his novel, The Glass Room, Simon Mawer starts with a picture of privilege. Through that he explores human relationships, families, history, sexuality and change, to list just a few of the elements and themes that feature. Not only does he blend these and other penetrating ideas, he also consistently and utterly engages the reader, draws the observer in so effectively that sometimes the experience is participatory. The Glass Room is a novel that succeeds on so many levels that it becomes hard to review. The only comment is that you should read it.

So why start with a shortcoming? Well, the start is as good a place as any to record The Glass Room’s only weakness, which relates to the identity of the family that forms the book’s focus, the Landauers. Victor has married Liesel. He is a rich man, an industrialist, an owner of a firm that makes cars. One would expect such a person to live and breathe his work rather more than he does. Consequently, he always seems less of a character than he surely ought to have been, rather aloof, something of a vehicle for the women involved. So the main criticism of a multi-themed, multi-layered book is that it could have pursued one more idea!

But The Glass Room’s real focus seems to be on the lives of its women. There are three central female characters that form the book’s backbone. Much of the book’s success is to see events separately, from their different individual perspectives.

Liesel is a German speaker, married to the car-maker, Viktor, who is Jewish and Czech. They are rich, unapologetically so, and commission a famous architect to design and build a house to be their family home near Prague. It is to be a house to end all houses. The Glass Room is the result, al ultra-modern, modernist, Bauhaus house with more light than can be imagined. Significantly, its areas of glass make it open to the world, a transparency within which a marriage grows gradually murkier towards the opaque.

Hana – let’s use a shortened version of her name – is a family friend. She is rather off-beat compared to the apparently conventional Landauers. Initially we know little of her own domestic life, circumstances that become highly significant later on. Hana becomes Liesel’s confidante, her closest friend. Her economic status is not that of the Landauers, but this does not seem to create a barrier.

Kata is a different kind of twentieth century heroine. She creates a life for herself with apparent pragmatism beneath the protecting umbrella of Viktor Landauer’s wealth and power. It may appear that he retains the upper hand, that he always writes the rules, but this story is more subtle than that.

When war comes the Glass Room is left behind. It changes. A deranged fascist project occupies its space. (Does that sentence contain a tautology?) A self-deceiving but damaged psychopath exploits an ideologically-driven, self-justifying search for a science of race. At least these scientists know what they are looking for. It’s a pity they must remain blind to the results. What they found they sought to enjoy, but it wasn’t knowledge.

The war affects each character differently and we follow them and their fortunes across Europe and across continents. Interestingly, it’s the economically advantaged who have the best chances. As in history, the poor just disappear. And by the end we have lived the characters’ lives almost alongside them. We have sensed the joy, the terror, the suffering and, most acutely, the deception and duplicity. The author’s footnote states that Der Glasraum does not necessarily translate to The Glass Room, since “raum” means something less defined, something more, like space or environment. The book captivates, its characters confide in us, but paradoxically the image of The Glass Room only rarely suggests transparency.
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Apr 09, 2013 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: aanraders

Hoofdpersoon in dit boek is het Haus Landauer, een huis wat, echt bestaat. Tegen het einde van het boek werd ik er toch wel nieuwsgierig naar en ook naar welke Zuid-Tsjechische stad er werd bedoeld met Mesto. Na wat gegoogle vond ik uit dat het deze villa moet zijn. http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Tu... Het staat zelfs op de Unesco Werelderfgoedlijst!
De overige hoofdpersonen: Liesel, Viktor, Hana, Katalin, Obersturmführer Stahl, Zdenka, Tomáš zijn bewoners of gebruikers van het huis en wèl f...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Stevedutch rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It’s been a long time since I read a book that has stayed with me for so long afterwards and, I have to say, I miss reading it. The protagonist is not, of course, human; it’s the eponymous room. The author has based his story on a real house, the Villa Tugendhat, which is situated in Brno in the Czech Republic and designed by the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe for the Tugendhat family who were Jewish and, as such, forced to leave for Switzerland following the German occupation in 1938...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Pam rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-books, fiction, gave-up-stopped-reading, own

I had problems with this book from the beginning. I picked it up for my book club and I misunderstood the person who reccomended it. I thought it was the TRUE story of the house in the Czech Republic. I was even sent a link to pictures of the house in an email. And thus, I began reading.

I didn't think anything too suspicious until the architect was introduced and I was like, that's not Mies van Der Rohe...I checked the website again and none of the names matched. WTF?! Then I went back to the bo...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Jan Hemphill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel has very fine writing, perceptive insights into a range of interesting, realistic characters and set in historically interesting period, it disappointed me; it seemed strangely without focus. The focus or framework for the book is the Landauer House (based on a real architectural phenomenon and including the real architect as a character) in Czechoslovakia (pre- and post-WW2) and this is not only inadequate in giving a strong motivation for the plot, but seems lifeless as a character,...more

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Aug 05, 2012 Diane Wallis rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of an iconic house based on architect, Mies van der Rohe's 'Villa Tugendhat' in Brno, Czech Republic. Well worth looking at the site and all the photos. Towards the end of Photogallery 2010 where there is a picture I found intriguing of a white tiled room which is a moth chamber to keep fur coats safely stored. Lovely to discover a detail such as this.
Simon Mawer's fictionalised account of those who designed, built, lived in, worked in and visited the Landauer House is engaging...more

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May 08, 2012 Ineke rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Simon Mawer beschrijft de geschiedenis van" De glazen kamer" een supermodern huis dat gebouwd is in 1930 door de architect Mies van der Rohe. In dat huis wonen Victor en Liesel Landauwer, hij is eigenaar van een autofabriek in Tsjechoslowakije en zij hebben het huis laten bouwen. Zij beleven hier hun mooiste jaren van hun huwelijk, en de dreiging van de Tweede Wereldoorlog is voelbaar. Het huis wordt gebruikt voor ontvangsten en muziekavonden totdat de oorlog een feit is en ook Victor en Liesel...more

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Sep 30, 2011 B. Morrison rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the perennial questions writers tend to rehash is whether or not to create an outline before starting to write. Many writers proudly announce that they have no idea where their stories are going when they begin; they follow where the story takes them and claim that this technique gives their work spontaneity and emotional depth. Other writers create quite detailed outlines and then proceed to follow them. I recently attended a workshop led by a successful author who mapped out her novels...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Jacquelynn Luben rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I started reading The Glass Room, I initially felt, now, this is a relief after the last fragmented book – a traditionally written literary novel. However, some of my feeling of appreciation faded away during the course of the book, which I felt lost its way a bit and for me lost impact in the latter half.

The Glass Room is based on a real building in Czechoslovakia - the Villa Tugendhat, designed in the late 1920s by Mies van der Rohe, which (I quote) is a celebration of steel, glass and sp...more When I started reading The Glass Room, I initially felt, now, this is a relief after the last fragmented book – a traditionally written literary novel. However, some of my feeling of appreciation faded away during the course of the book, which I felt lost its way a bit and for me lost impact in the latter half.

The Glass Room is based on a real building in Czechoslovakia - the Villa Tugendhat, designed in the late 1920s by Mies van der Rohe, which (I quote) is a celebration of steel, glass and space, an enduring reminder that modern materials can make for exquisitely sculptural architecture. (Personally, I have never been convinced by this modern preference for glass and steel. Bricks are much more homely and cosy. To work in an office with a huge window is a nightmare in summer - as I found out in a very modern building at a temp. job in Guildford.) However, let's put all that to one side and get back to the book.

I was very interested in the couple who first instigate the design and building of the house, Viktor and Liesel, who having built the place, need to leave it, when Viktor, a Jew, becomes aware how Nazism is sweeping through Europe. The problem for me here is that while they leave the house, we do not follow them through their lives. Instead, we are forced to revisit the house and see who else occupies it in the ensuring years. The author may have been fascinated by the house, but I was not, and seeing that Viktor and Liesel had occupied a large percentage of the book, the other characters introduced later seemed irrelevant to me.

Others have commented on the coincidences which also take place in the book, some of which I was prepared to forgive, but others seemed contrived. At my book group, we also noticed the amount of fairly explicit sex that took place. As someone commented, the only thing left out, was a variation with animals. Was it necessary? I didn't think so, myself.

The wartime events were of the most significant to me – and I particularly noticed how Liesel was reluctant to leave Czechoslovakia, even though the Germans had invaded Austria and subsequently, the Sudetenland. She didn't think they should worry about things across the borders. That, of course, was the downfall of many victims of Nazism – that they couldn't believe that it would happen in their land.(less)

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Jul 24, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

While reading recommendations for this historical novel I came across the criticism "too many coincidences" too many times, yet the storyline intrigued me, the writing style was literary, the Kindle price was right ($1.99). If walls could talk they would write this story. Newlyweds, the Landauers, engage an architect to build a modern marvel of a house high in the hills overlooking the city in pre-WWII Czechlosvakia. The family moves in and the house comes alive, a character in the story as rich...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Michele Weiner rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the barely disguised story of a famous Mies Van der Rohe home in Brno, and the family who built it on a suburban hillside. The author imagines the life the fictional Landauers would have lead in this ultramodern home, whose major features include an upside-down design with the living room (the famous Glass Space) on the lower floor and the main entrance above. It was actually hung from shiny steel girders that were both a design and a structural feature, and included a room that had huge...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Sophia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A moving and impressive historical novel set in Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s.

Ian Sansom, writing in the Guardian says, '... [it's] a book about a culture slipping from decadence into catastrophic decline. It's a study of a marriage. It concerns itself with art, music, architecture, indignity, loneliness, terror, betrayal, sex. And the Holocaust. It should, therefore, be pretentious, unbearable schlock of the most appalling kind. But it's not. It is, unexpectedly, a thing of extraordinary be...more

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Apr 15, 2011 Steven Buechler rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great look at how complexities of European society, ideals, history through the eyes of a Czech family and the windows of their unique home.

--pg25
"The Glass Space.
For the moment it was without form or substance, yet it existed, diffuse, diverse, in their minds and in the mind of Rainer von Abt (the architect) It existed in the manner that ideas and ideals, shifting and insubstantial, may exist. Space, light, glass; some spare furniture; windows, looking out on a garden; a sweep of shining floo...more

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Feb 16, 2011 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub-reads, war-works

Another one of my book club's recommendations. unlike so many of the books we seem to choose the sadness and tragedy is more understated though it is most certainly there. It follows the lives and loves ( and boy do they do a lot of the latter in the 1930's Czech republic ) of a very wealthy family during the tragically short period of an independent state rising from the collapse of the Austro- Hungarian Empire. The family are Jewish/Christian by culture though atheist by belief and it shows th...more

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Nov 07, 2010 Gayle rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A novel in the purest sense, I dove into this book, really my kind of fiction. Mawer takes an actual house, an architectural and historial landmark in the former Chekoslovakia, and imagines an entire historical period and characters who inhabit it. The House itself is almost a character. I moved into that Glass House, too, and suffered its travails through the dreaded tumult of the 1930s. At first I was reluctant to live in Nazi Europe for this read, but Mawer didn't take me down the usual, pred...more

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Oct 20, 2010 Cameling rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 Hi...more

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Sep 27, 2010 Teresa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Viktor and Liesel Landauer believe that they, with the help of their architect Rainer von Abt, have created the perfect home. Set on a hillside of a Czech town, their house is itself a work of art, and its most arresting feature is a glass room that serves as the primary living space. What Viktor and Liesel do not realize is that modern living cannot be "an experience of sublime delight" when your home is in 1930s Czechoslovakia and especially not when one of you is a Jew. [return][return]Simon...more Viktor and Liesel Landauer believe that they, with the help of their architect Rainer von Abt, have created the perfect home. Set on a hillside of a Czech town, their house is itself a work of art, and its most arresting feature is a glass room that serves as the primary living space. What Viktor and Liesel do not realize is that modern living cannot be "an experience of sublime delight" when your home is in 1930s Czechoslovakia and especially not when one of you is a Jew. [return][return]Simon Mawer� s The Glass Room begins as a story of a house and a marriage, but even after the couple the leaves the house, the house remains the central story. Others come to occupy the house and make their own attempts to create some sort of perfect place. But they find that nothing ever quite works out as they intend.[return][return]There� s a lot about this book to admire. Mawer is wonderful with words; his prose only rarely seems overblown. The sections on the building of the Landauer� s house (which is based on the Villa Tugendhat, designed by Mies Van Der Rohe) were very interesting. And I think Mawer brings out some interesting ideas about our sometimes misguided efforts to organize our environments and to shed the supposedly unnecessary ornaments of the past. The truth is, it can� t be done, and the question is, should we even attempt it?[return][return]Even though I admired these ideas, I think they� re too easily hidden in what seem to me to be predictable tropes common to so much literary fiction today. Almost every central relationship is sexual, whether consummated or not, and characters are far more accepting of unusual choices in that arena than I believe they would have been at that time. I just couldn� t quite buy it, and I couldn� t pin down whether Mawer was celebrating libertinism or whether he� s using sexuality to show how difficult it is for us to control ourselves.[return][return]It� s a good book, but it� s also ordinary. It never quite becomes more than an excellent piece of high-end literary fiction. It� s still excellent, more elegant and complex than a lot of � book club bait� that gets classed as literary fiction. But it doesn't stretch any boundaries or take any huge risks.[return][return]See my complete review at my blog.(less)

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Aug 31, 2010 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Set in the period before, during and after the Second World War, The Glass Room tells the story of an ultra-modernist house built by wealthy Czech couple, the Landauers. Herr Landauer owned a company that manufactured cars but since he was Jewish, his comfortable bourgeois life was about to be shattered by the accession of Adolf Hitler.

The Landauers were fortunate enough to be able to escape Czechoslovakia, fleeing first to Switzerland and later to America. Meanwhile a succession of owners took...more

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May 07, 2010 Hannah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book wowed me. There are numerous books about the plight of Jews in Nazi dominated Europe, but this novel takes a new angle.

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....more

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Apr 07, 2010 Kiwiflora rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fifteen years ago the author visited the Tugendhat house in Czechoslovakia which is the house upon which this novel is based on. Designed by Ludwig Miles van der Rohe it is considered an icon of modern architecture. So highly regarded is it that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the information available the house in this book would appear to be a replica of the real house and is the one centre piece constant throughout the novel in a world of chaos and disintegration.

Despite the historical...more Fifteen years ago the author visited the Tugendhat house in Czechoslovakia which is the house upon which this novel is based on. Designed by Ludwig Miles van der Rohe it is considered an icon of modern architecture. So highly regarded is it that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From the information available the house in this book would appear to be a replica of the real house and is the one centre piece constant throughout the novel in a world of chaos and disintegration.

Despite the historical backdrop which encompasses the Nazis, war, communism and all the rest it, the house remains, a symbol perhaps of the indestructibility of the human spirit and hope for the future. This is primarily a story of optimism. Throughout the story all the characters are looking to improve themselves and their lives, always looking forwards. And it follows, for once, that for a story about war and destruction it does actually have a happy ending.

Liesel and Viktor (who is Jewish) Landauer commission the house to be built in 1929. Its erection coincides with the pregnancy and birth of the couple's first child, symbolic of the new life as a family within the walls of the house. The plot follows the well known history of the time with the taking over of Austria and then Czechoslovakia by the Germans, the refugees who arrive in the locality, anti semitism and how it all affects this family, their friends and associates. The family escape to Switzerland in 1938, leaving the house to its fate, and after a hurried journey across Europe in around 1942 finally finish up in the USA.

The house meantime lives through and survives to the modern day, and at the end of the story becomes the focus for the conclusion. The Glass Room is the main living room of the house, and encompasses the whole front expanse of the building with huge window panes of glass and an onyx wall. So much of the critical elements and events of the story take place in this room.

This is a fabulous piece of story telling, giving a slightly different take on the thousands of novels that have come out of the horror of the WWII, the Nazis, the holocaust, Communist rule, and subsequent breakdown. All that stuff happens in the background, the focus in this story is the people to whom it is happening too. There is some beautiful writing, without being overly sentimental, just a little mind you! I did find some of the characters a bit flat though, not enough depth or roundness to them. With the exception perhaps of Hana who is Liesl's best friend. Although she is not one of the main characters of the story, she certainly comes across as the most complex and interesting.

A most worthwhile book, that does take a little while to get going - till about page 75 from memory, but then the switch for me suddenly came on and I was away with it.
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Feb 22, 2010 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Another fictional account of the suffering caused by WWII with the setting a real house designed by Mies Van der Rohe in the Czech Republic. I love domestic architecture so googled the place to get the full effect of its design. Windows!!! Wonderful windows. (some pretty bad youtube videos bobbing and weaving, but I got the impact easily after watching a few.) The fictional family, the husband a wealthy Jewish car manufacturer and his wife an innocent young woman, love the light and open space,...more

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Jan 13, 2010 Boyd rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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.

However, four stars for the...more

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Apr 26, 2011 Wanda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is definitely a must for anyone who loves to read. It is an extraordinary and beautifully written book that is loosely based on the history of the Villa Tugendhat in the Czech Republic, and now a UNESCO Heritage site. The Villa serves as the main character in the novel as well as serving as the architecture of the book. All of the well drawn characters interact with and within the house and all of the plot revelations take place within its walls.
Abandoned by its owners, who fled to Sw...more

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“She knows what it is to be sad and miserable, but those emotions are almost enjoyable. They throw moments of happiness and laughter into sharper relief.” — 5 people liked it

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