"Mata said to plunge a viewer into a state of terror meant to take away their compass, their tools for navigating the world, and to replace it with a compass that told a different kind of truth. The trick was ensuring the viewer was so consumed by fright that they didn't even notice this exchange was being made; it was a secret transaction between their imagination and the film, and when they left the theater, those new truths would go with them, swimming like eels under the skin." * The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg is a surreal fever dream-like narrative of a woman grieving for her husband while in Cuba for a film festival they were meant to travel to together. She spots her husband standing in front of a museum & becomes obsessed with finding him & finding out what he's doing there. While I have mixed feelings about the story, I must admit that it has stuck with me, like eels swimming under my skin. This is not a mystery or a thriller. It's a novel about grief. It's about, marriage, family, memories, loneliness, non-loneliness (if that's a thing). Van den Berg's writing is precise & dreamlike at the same time. She brings to life the tropic heat of Cuba, the simple enjoyment of a single mango, the oppression of a drunken party filled with unfamiliar people, the strange detached feeling when first dealing with death. She doesn't describe scenes in their entirety but she evokes them with her sparse details. Don't read this if you like clear answers and neatly tied up plots. I wasn't a big fan of the ending, but I look forward to reading more of van den Berg's works. * #funaekreads #funaekbooks #instabooks #instareads #pugsandbooks #bookreview #thethirdhotel #lauravandenberg https://www.instagram.com/p/CDwm0lUghAX/?igshid=17a35bf2nixwx
