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lorenzadlung 's review for:
סוס אחד נכנס לבר
by David Grossman, דויד גרוסמן
I decided to read this book because I'm living in Israel for almost two years already, and I'm always trying to cover the Booker Prize Awardees. A good friend of mine strongly recommended the book, but my former roommate disliked it, so I was curious.
The story is a two-hour stand-up comedy show by Dovaleh Greenstein. The narrator is the meanwhile retired judge Avishai Lazar, who knew Greenstein as a boy decades ago. Lazar joined the show in Netanya, Israel, upon request. Greenstein had called him earlier and kindly asked him to attend. Lazar is supposed to note what he's seeing in Greenstein while performing. The show itself turns into a disturbing recap of a traumatic event in Greenstein's childhood rather than a decent comedy. Even though many jokes are being told, the majority of the audience is leaving prior to the end of the show as they were expecting something different. Also Lazar is tempted to escape prematurely. He doesn't see the point in all of this. When Greenstein called him in the first place, Lazar couldn't even remember him. But as the show continues, Lazar's memories are being revived, and he's dragged into the misery, just like the reader.
"A horse walks into a bar" is a compelling read. Greenstein's language is very rough and comedy-like. The description of his performance is full of both, contempt and sympathy, altering as Greenstein is telling his story unsteadily, losing his train-of-thought every now and then. It turns out that Greenstein himself is sharing his thoughts to bring back his feelings, to understand them. The reader witnesses how events of their own biography can or cannot be rationally analysed to make sense out of them. A bit arbitrary and nonetheless special. Arbitrary because things just happen at random, we'll never have full control, we make decisions that we wouldn't make in retrospect, but we can't go back, so we have to accept them as part of our history. Special because all this makes us what we are, what people see, eventually when it all comes up. This is a valuable lesson, taught by an intriguing novel worth reading.
The story is a two-hour stand-up comedy show by Dovaleh Greenstein. The narrator is the meanwhile retired judge Avishai Lazar, who knew Greenstein as a boy decades ago. Lazar joined the show in Netanya, Israel, upon request. Greenstein had called him earlier and kindly asked him to attend. Lazar is supposed to note what he's seeing in Greenstein while performing. The show itself turns into a disturbing recap of a traumatic event in Greenstein's childhood rather than a decent comedy. Even though many jokes are being told, the majority of the audience is leaving prior to the end of the show as they were expecting something different. Also Lazar is tempted to escape prematurely. He doesn't see the point in all of this. When Greenstein called him in the first place, Lazar couldn't even remember him. But as the show continues, Lazar's memories are being revived, and he's dragged into the misery, just like the reader.
"A horse walks into a bar" is a compelling read. Greenstein's language is very rough and comedy-like. The description of his performance is full of both, contempt and sympathy, altering as Greenstein is telling his story unsteadily, losing his train-of-thought every now and then. It turns out that Greenstein himself is sharing his thoughts to bring back his feelings, to understand them. The reader witnesses how events of their own biography can or cannot be rationally analysed to make sense out of them. A bit arbitrary and nonetheless special. Arbitrary because things just happen at random, we'll never have full control, we make decisions that we wouldn't make in retrospect, but we can't go back, so we have to accept them as part of our history. Special because all this makes us what we are, what people see, eventually when it all comes up. This is a valuable lesson, taught by an intriguing novel worth reading.