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Summary
Summary
A New York Times Best-Seller
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.nbsp; Viktor and Liesel, a rich Jewish mogul married to a thoughtful, modern gentile, pour all of their hopes for their marriage and budding family into their stunning new home, filling it with children, friends, and a generation of artists and thinkers eager to abandon old-world European style in favor of the new and the avant-garde. But as life intervenes, their new home also brings out their most passionate desires and darkest secrets. As Viktor searches for a warmer, less challenging comfort in the arms of another woman, and Liesel turns to her wild, mischievous friend Hana for excitement, the marriage begins to show signs of strain. The radiant honesty and idealism of 1930 quickly evaporate beneath the storm clouds of World War II. As Nazi troops enter the country, the family must leave their old life behind and attempt to escape to America before Viktor's Jewish roots draw Nazi attention, and before the family itself dissolves.
As the Landauers struggle for survival abroad, their home slips from hand to hand, from Czech to Nazi to Soviet possession and finally back to the Czechoslovak state, with new inhabitants always falling under the fervent and unrelenting influence of the Glass Room. Its crystalline perfection exerts a gravitational pull on those who know it, inspiring them, freeing them, calling them back, until the Landauers themselves are finally drawn home to where their story began.
Brimming with barely contained passion and cruelty, the precision of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession, and the fear of failure - the Glass Room contains it all.
Author Notes
Author and biology teacher Simon Mawer was born in England in 1948. He studied at Somerset's Millfield School and Oxford's Brasenose College, receiving a degree in zoology. Mawer's first novel, Chimera, won the McKitterick Prize, while The Fall earned the 2003 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature. He has written several other novels, as well as the exhibition companion volume Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics. His novel, Tightrope, made the New Zealand Best Seller List in 2015 and won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The latest from novelist Mawer (The Fall) begins with great promise, as Jewish newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer meet with architect Rainier von Abt, not just an architect but "a poet.[of] light and space and form," who builds their dream home, a "modern house adapted to the future rather than the past, to the openness of modern living." World events, however, are about to overtake 1930s Czechoslovakia. Viktor, like most in the community, dismisses rumors of impending pogroms-"The only people who hold the German economy together are the Jews"-but once the signs of Nazi occupation become impossible to ignore, the Landauers must abandon their beloved home. In a bizarre twist of fate, however, Liesel insists on rescuing single mother Katra, unaware that Katra is Viktor's new mistress. As the world spins into chaos, the highly symbolic Landauer house is the only constant; though it shifts identities more than once, the house remains "ageless," a place "that defines the very existence of time." Mawer's writing and characters are rich, but his twisty plot depends too often on unbelievable coincidences, especially in the conclusion. (Oct.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
New York Review of Books Review
It's the late 1920s, and on a hillside in Czechoslovakia's second city an architectural marvel is rising from the mud: a futuristic house composed of clean lines, steel pillars and glass that represents the dreams of the wealthy and cultured Liesel and Viktor Landauer. But next door in Germany something else altogether is starting to rise, and it's clear from the outset that these worlds are about to collide. Viktor is Jewish and not only sees what is coming but has the means to do something about it, salting money away in Switzerland before eventually fleeing with both his family and his mistress. Among those left behind are Liesel's best friend, Hana; Hana's Jewish husband; and, of course, the house. Modeled on the real Villa Tugendhat, in the Czech city of Brno, the Landauer Haus - or, rather, its vast glass room - is a main character in this novel (a finalist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize) and a rather unsympathetic one at that. With its "cool, calm rationality," its ability to liberate people "from the strictures and conventions of the ordinary," its aura of detachment ("plain, balanced, perfect; and indifferent"), even its standing witness to a rape, "silent and reserved, observing impassively," the haughty glass room strikes an irritating note in an otherwise satisfying tale.
Library Journal Review
Sarah's Key meets The Fountainhead in this Holocaust-themed novel with an architectural marvel in the leading role. As a wave of modernism sweeps across Europe in the aftermath of World War I, Czech newlyweds Victor and Liesel Landauer embrace the future and engage a daring German architect to plan their new home. Built with new materials of chrome, glass, and steel, the house features an onyx wall and a glass room designed to showcase modern art and sculpture and to serve as an inviting space for parties and concerts. But the Nazi storm troopers are on their inexorable march through Europe, and Victor is Jewish, so the Landauers abandon their beloved home and take flight. The rest of the story follows the fate of their house as it changes hands through the shifting political tides of Nazism, communism, and a return to democracy. Verdict What begins as a gripping, war-era family saga loses some momentum when the Landauers exit center stage. Nonetheless, this worthy Man Booker nominee deserves to find an appreciative audience.-Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
