I will come clean straight away and confess that my progress through the Man Booker shortlist has been completely disrupted by Stieg Larsson. Tempted by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I became totally and utterly hooked and have now read all three – The Girl who played with Fire and The Girl who kicked the Hornet’s Nest. It’s been a long time, if ever, that I’ve read anything so compelling, such a ripping good yarn with a dose of Swedish social conscience. Do go for it, but make sure you are either on holiday or otherwise have nothing too pressing to do as I assure you, you won’t be able to put any of the books down.
Back to The Glass Room, the best of the shortlist after the winner. Wolf Hall. It’s also set in the past, though this time only the middle of the last century, starting before the Second World War.
At the end of the 1920s a wealthy, partly Jewish, Austrian family build a very modern house of glass where they hold musical soirees and generally live a privileged life. The rise of Hitler and the War put paid to all of that and the family leaves the house for the United States. Eventually the heroine comes back to Austria and is reunited with her oldest friend.
The book isn’t, in fact, as trite as this outline sounds. Taking the house as its central feature, The Glass Room explores nationality, religion, war and the relationships between men and women with some degree of originality. Written in an easy style, it’s a good read and will repay the time invested in it.
