Kuća ili Čovjek koji je kupovao čavle

Daniel Beker, an enigmatic man, accidentally becomes a teacher at the Yugoslav Supplementary School in London. Although his students adore him, he is not very good at the job, because he is expected to be loyal to the socialist system. He, naive, only wants to give his best to his students, not realizing what can happen. His wife is an ambitious and strong woman whose dream is to achieve a career in the banking world, while Daniel dreams of his own home, a house near Zagreb, and she supports him in his efforts to return to his homeland, so that she does not get in the way.

We recognize the heroes of The House as our parents, grandparents, everyday heroes through whom history is refracted. The construction of the house, very realistically described, with machinations and delays, with humorous elements, incompetent craftsmen and numerous brokers, can never be completed and succeeded, nor can the construction of a better society.

Ludwig Bauer in The House or The Man Who Bought Nails painted a fresco of the last decades of socialism. The novel is about two lovers who, driven by their obsessions – the house or the career – gradually drift apart. The House shows the reverse side of the socialist system that breaks down in the face of its own ambitions just as Daniel Beker did, but above all The House is a story about people – their kindness and naivety, their greed and treachery, about whether we can ever understand each other.