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bearsister 's review for:
A Horse Walks into a Bar
by David Grossman
DID NOT FINISH
I'm so disappointed by this book. The whole story takes place in a comedy club during a stand-up set, from the point of view of a childhood friend of the comedian who was asked to sit in the audience. Over the course of the night, the reader is given insight into their relationship and the kinds of choices they made, and how they ended up here.
Except stand up comedy is a medium that is characterized by tight, heavily rehearsed performances that respond to the crowd dynamically, and the comedian in this book is unfocused, going off on unfunny, stream-of-consciousness tangents for pages at a time, peppered with the occasional elementary school joke. The reactions of the audience feel stiff and confusing to me as a result.
I understand what this book is trying to do, but it feels like such a waste to use stand up as a frame for this narrative when every other contemporary novel just does crude stream-of-consciousness for the internal dialogue of their main characters anyway without the pretension.
It's also exhausting to read another novel where the main character sees the calf of a woman and is thrust into agony because it reminds him of his ex-wife.
Except stand up comedy is a medium that is characterized by tight, heavily rehearsed performances that respond to the crowd dynamically, and the comedian in this book is unfocused, going off on unfunny, stream-of-consciousness tangents for pages at a time, peppered with the occasional elementary school joke. The reactions of the audience feel stiff and confusing to me as a result.
I understand what this book is trying to do, but it feels like such a waste to use stand up as a frame for this narrative when every other contemporary novel just does crude stream-of-consciousness for the internal dialogue of their main characters anyway without the pretension.
It's also exhausting to read another novel where the main character sees the calf of a woman and is thrust into agony because it reminds him of his ex-wife.