I discovered The Glass Room by Simon Mawer at a book sale and picked it up partially for the cover’s art style and partially because the cover advertises that it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009. The Man Booker does not often lead me astray, so I opted to try out this hitherto unknown to me text.
Not knowing what to expect, I began the book with the vague idea of a Faustian bargain. Viktor and Liesel Landauer are wealthy Czech couple who encounter a Mephistopheles-like architect. He seems to infiltrate his way into their lives in an almost sinister register before building them a dream home made of glass. It’s a modern architectural marvel that sparks much debate. But, when people live in glass houses, well…some problems start to arise.
For the first three hundred pages, roughly, one of the central problems is marital infidelity. We are first introduced to the idea via another Mephistophelean figure: the family friend Hana, who is seeking to have an(other) affair with a composer. She’s a bit of a mischievous cuckoldress that seems to incite both terror and amusement from Liesel when she confides in her. She suggests that all men are prone to infidelity, to which Liesel protests. Unfortunately for Liesel, her husband Viktor proves Hana’s hypothesis by having an affair with a sex worker in Vienna while away on business. Meanwhile, Hana professes her love for Liesel and the two share a charged kiss, but Liesel does not take up the opportunity for an ongoing same-sex affair.
Running concurrently to these affairs is the looming threat of war. We’re in the build-up to World War Two and Viktor gets increasingly fearful of the news. This in particular because he is a Jew as Germany is expanding its influence. As the book continues, we see Viktor give up his business to a non-Jewish family member for safeholding. We also see him end his affair (sort of), by giving a substantial sum to Kata. However, as Germany’s influence displaces people across Europe, by sheer coincidence (maybe), Kata arrives at the glass house, which becomes a dwelling for refugees. Viktor’s affair picks up again and becomes even more illicit since it happens under the nose of his wife.
As the war escalates, the Landauer family is forced to move. They migrate East across Europe, moving to Switzerland and passing through France and so on as they progress towards America, taking Kata with them. I think the main fault of Mawer’s novel is in its repetition. There is so much discussion of the family moving, not moving, of the affair continuing, ending, and so on. I suppose that’s somewhat reflective of historical stagnation (the novel does have quite a lot of reflection about time and history, with one character refusing to admit that history exists…). Narratively, I felt it could be substantially culled. What is most intriguing is, in some ways, least explored.
When Liesel discovers Viktor’s affair, it’s somewhat anticlimactic. She wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that Viktor is not there. She wanders the home until she hears evidence of his amorousness with Kata. I forgot to mention that there are also children in the home—two parented by Viktor and Liesel and one of Kata’s from a previous relationship. Anyway, Liesel discovers the affair in a way that feels accidental rather than narratively engineered. It could have been more finely crafted. What is more compelling, though, is that even after the discovery of the affair Liesel does not outright throw Kata out of their circle. It’s kind of an impossible situation to be in and I felt a lot of empathy for both Liesel and Kata, bound to Viktor in their own ways. That dynamic is rendered even more complex where it is suggested that Liesel herself is attracted to Kata. There’s a looming bisexuality that hovers over the characters in the book that is never quite pushed into full view, but is always lingering at the edge of the frame.
While the central characters are abroad, there are other things happening around the Glass House. The caretakers of the home are using it for their own purposes and have increasingly frequent conversations about how the Landauers are never coming home so they have free reign to do as they see fit. That is, until the Nazis take over the house as a research laboratory. Running concurrently, Liesel is receiving letters from Hana, who stayed home instead of joining them. She still seems to profess a romantic love for Liesel and it’s quite tragic watching her exploits. Hana is likely the most lovable character in the book for being so lost and so loving.
Hana being lost and loving is at the core of her side-story. While the Nazis occupy the glass house, she visits and begins a romance with one of the researchers. He invites her to be photographed as they try to conduct genetic research, with the ultimate purpose being that they want to be able to identify Jews simply by looking at their face structure, body types, and so on. The backstory for Hana’s love life is tragic in its own way, not least of all her choice of affairmate. Mawer reveals that the man was in love with a cousin and that the two had a genetic condition that created a defect in their child, whom they euthanized at the age of four or so. It’s pretty depressing—but it gets worse.
Tragically, Hana sleeps with the man in the glass house and gets pregnant. When she comes to confront him about it, it’s heartbreaking. She wants to keep the baby (she always thought she was barren, which is why she was able to carry on so many affairs). When she confronts her Nazi about it, he implies she will get an abortion. Hana has an absolutely crushing moment where she tells him that he’s a baby killer, referring to his tragic situation with his daughter. He slaps her across the face and then anally rapes her. It’s a brutal, devastating scene.
Hana’s treatment in the text is so heartbreaking because she is so lonely, so misunderstood, and so desperately loving. The other most crushing moment is likely as the Landauers are moving to America. Viktor makes arrangements for passports and tickets (including return tickets) so that if the train gets turned around they won’t have to go back to Czechoslovakia. As they travel from France to Spain, Nazis apprehend the train and families are separated. Liesel and her children are seemingly safe, Viktor has fake identification, but Kata is separated from the family. It’s crushing that Liesel watches as Viktor fights with the authorities over the legitimacy of Kata’s paperwork. He is putting himself in danger and for his mistress. Liesel is devastated by it and when Viktor fails and cries over the loss, she wonders aloud whether he would cry for her.
The book then drops the central characters for roughly a hundred pages. That is probably the most unsatisfying part of the book. After three hundred pages, we begin anew with other characters. I suppose it’s realistic to Holocaust narratives: lives are cut off short, you don’t know where people end up, and so on. The next hundred pages goes into the history of the glass house. The Nazis give up on the research project and cut funding. The glass house then becomes a dance academy where an older Hana helps run the operation and has a romance with a much younger woman. It’s revealed that she and her husband were taken to concentration camps; her husband was killed and she managed to survive. We then get updates on different characters; Leisel has been invited to visit the glass house, which has now become a museum. There are some heartfelt reunions that are a little too saccharine, and it just feels like we didn’t focus on the right things. Mawer seems to mishandle the conflicts; we don’t see the process of reaching satisfying resolutions, we see the conflict come to a head and then we jump ahead. The fragmentary nature of the narrative is reflective of history, but my own investment waned when jumping around between such a large cast of characters.
As I was trying to review a few details for this book (I finished it about two weeks ago), I stumbled onto the Wikipedia page. As it turns out, there is some controversy. There’s a villa Tugendhat that Mawer supposedly based his novel on. The descendants of the Tugendhat family do not approve of the book. The daughter, Daniela Hammer-Tugendhat accuses the book of being theft: “First, the Nazis took our house and now Mawer took our story. The novel isn’t about our family, it is against our family [...] For me, they are parasites that want to get their glory out of the house.” I can’t really offer much commentary on this conflict, but I do think it’s interesting that a book that is so explicitly promoting empathy towards the Jews impacted by the Holocaust seems to have such a blind spot towards the actual impact of the work on descendants of it.
Overall, I thought the book was okay. I started out very optimistically, and there were a few powerful moments and the imagery of the book is pretty great. Moreover, Hana is such an endearing character and I really appreciated the ambiguous sexual and romantic bonds between characters. There were some compelling dynamics, if a bit repetitive as a narrative.
Happy reading!
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