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barbaraalfond 's review for:
סוס אחד נכנס לבר
by David Grossman, דויד גרוסמן
By any measure, this is the single most excruciating book I have read in my entire lifetime. An Israeli comedian self-immolates in front of an incredulous audience, which dwindles to the semi-informed bystander, the childhood neighbor, the woman with the silver hair, the dishwasher, and you. Waiting for the punchline, or, in this case, the punch in the gut, made me want to tear my hair out and put a hot poker in my eye. How, I thought, could this mess of self-abnegation come from the same David Grossman who wrote such a plangent, poetic book as To the End of the Land? Did I have him mixed up with another author? Had he suffered a psychotic breakdown? Had I? Then came the dawn. Both books are about waiting—waiting for the worst possible news in the world. A world turned upside down. Mother and child; child and mother. Book the second is a mirror image of book the first. I could hardly bear the wait—neither of them could bear the weight. Oh, my God. I’ll admit that this is a tour de force, and I will admit to hating every single second of it. But it wasn’t about me.