Winner of the Man Booker International Award for 2017, and translated by Jessica Cohen, "A Horse Walks into a Bar" is not an easy read, for all the garb of a performance in Stand up Comedy. It is the story of the Comedian, as he digests for all to see, the single most important incident in his life- and the events which surrounded that incident, forty three years after that event.
Dovaleh Greenstein, as a matter of choice, decides that he must battle his demons and reveal all to an audience which had come for - comedy. But comedy that evening is, but in the fringes. Dovaleh, chooses that evening, possibly his last performance as is inferred, to bear all. In the audience is Avishai Lazar, a retired district judge, who learns forty three years too late, the level of the let down he did to his friend. Avishai, possibly is a judge crafted by his innate character as some of his reminisces suggest - mostly unattached, with some regrets in life - a perfect character to judge others when called upon due to his aloofness. Aged barely 14 at that time, born to poor parents and a mother who had suffered from the holocaust, bullied and made fun of, Dovaleh battling his deepest fears, finds an unexpected and weak support by way of untimely jokes uttered by a bad Army driver - whose name he has never learned.
This book is about the disintegration of the stand up comedian, Dovaleh Greenstein - the sorry tale of the comedian. The book can be understood at different levels - from the different ways that the crowd behaves - some leave, some complain before leave, some grumble about the good money spent to suffer through one man's left tale and yet some offer him moral support, by lending an ear despite the raw deal they got that evening. There is no huge plot in this novel. It is all about the human element. Where no one is right and no one is wrong. Circumstances make us behave in a particular way, at a given time. We don't have a 360 degree view of how our omissions and commissions, can help or hurt a person. The author has used the episode of the all-telling stand up comedian, to elucidate to us this home truth. The auther without saying the very words, suggest that intuition is fairly wrong, and if something that we do or don't do worries our mind, that's our inner self giving us the red light, that chances are we cannot rest with the decisions we are making at the time. Hence it is a deep read and not your everyday novel. It is a rewarding read at the end of a sprawling narration - and that, not due to its length, for it is not a large book. The only novel ( far fetched at that ) I can relate or compare to this one is "A sense of an Ending", but that has a well crafted plot and a story. But the incidences of omissions and commissions could be thought of as some
similarity in theme.
Read, if you like a deep narration about human conscience. But be warned, it is by no means a casual read.
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