Named a best book of 2009 by The Economist, The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, London Evening Standard, The Observer, and Slate.com 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.

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 read about Jews living in Eastern Europe in the 1930s who all exit the time period relatively unscathed. The no-longer-newlywed couple moves to Switzerland to escape the Nazis and while it’s sad they have to abandon their home, the wife’s complaining felt petty given what happened to those who didn’t have the money to jump ship. Granted, she likely had no idea what was actually going on. Nonetheless, it made me care less about the humans in this book than I already did.Tomáš is a pediatrician, has a relationship with Zdenka, a dancer turned physiotherapist. Their gymis the Glass Room. She is his rusalka, her Ondine. The Landauer House, which stood for the indomitable future and the erasure of the past, becomes its own history of hope through struggle and war. During the unstable, treacherous German onslaught, the house becomes a scientific laboratory whose ultimate aim is to promote ethnic cleansing. Later, the Landauer's sinister chauffeur becomes the keeper, then a hostage, and finally a champion of the Soviet invasion. The Glass Room stands as a bastion of optimism amid menacing threats and perilous challenges to freedom and humanity. 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. They have a house-warming, in which many distinguished intelligentsia and artists are invited. These include composer Vacla Kapral and his 15 y/o daughter Vítězslava Kaprálová aka Vitulka (both real persons). Both she and Nemec play the piano, she choosing "Ondine" from Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit. Hana suggests that the good times are too good to last.

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.

Viktor’s side of the family is Jewish, and he recognizes that that they must flee the country during the lead-up to World War II. The first part is focused on the Landauer family. It then portrays what happens to the house during and after WWII, including the initial caretakers, a Nazi laboratory, and a children’s hospital. Basically, the reader watches through the glass panes to witness the lives of everyone who lives in, works in, or has close ties to the house. The writing, as sensual and sophisticated as its subjects, keeps us firmly within the house’s elegant parameters, caught up in the touch and taste and roiling emotions of the characters living through these events. Seeing clearly, Mawer shows us, is never an option, no matter how large and expensive your windows. Every era thinks it has achieved transparency, complete with modern fixtures and sundry decorations. But we can’t ever actually see out, because our damned humanity keeps misting up the glass.”— Time Out London A] saga of a family and a nation at war…Mawer moves with grace among multiple points of view and establishes sympathy for characters with competing interests.”— The Forward Written in eloquent, luminous prose, the novel soars from beginning to end, engulfing the reader into a world that is part-dream, part-imagination, and frightfully real. The latter part of the novel has a few encumbrances--it feels hurried and hamstrung, fitting too many events, people, and perfunctory dramas into a condensed frame. And yet, it doesn't deform this shattering, beautiful story. A bird with a broken wing trills its eternal song. Hope, freedom, history, and love prevail in an upside down house, in a glass room. I'm currently reading Telling Tales which I saw dramatized as one of the TV episodes. Even though I know who the killer is, I'm enjoying the writing and the characters. And the difference in the perspective of the book (a lot of which takes place before Vera arrives on the scene) is interesting.

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...... 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. I love this series. I'm about to branch off into another of Cleeves' series (the Shetland series) because she's so wonderful. But it may just be that I love Vera Stanhope. I'm obsessed with the series and it's faithful to the spirit of the book (even though although Brenda Blethyn manages to look dowdy as Vera she's certainly a lot more attractive than the Vera in the book!). The Landauers give a charity recital to raise funds for the Human Rights League. Viktor is quietly moving money to Switzerland.

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. Enjoyed this one, perhaps my favourite so far. There's an air of Agatha Christie about the setting and as she's mentioned in passing that might have been intentional. A very traditional cosy mystery setting and cast. A group of would-be writers in a big house and a murder with clues left. One of the suspects someone Vera might call a friend if she was feeling generous or fancying some homebrew. I have a lasting affection for the genre so liked seeing Vera taking it on.