Marc's Reviews > A Horse Walks into a Bar

A public self-chastisement
Reading this book was very uncomfortable and distressing, and that was clearly the intention of Grossman. The 57-year-old stand-up comedian Dovaleh Gerstein performs in a room in Netanja and regularly tells a joke that really needs to be laughed at, but his performance is mainly characterized by corrosive sarcasm about the world, Israelian society , the holocaust (of course), and especially about himself. Gradually he becomes more personal, dives into the depths of his soul, exposes his most severe traumas and pounds on the most serious injuries he has suffered as a person. Gerstein also consciously seeks the confrontation with the audience, that gradually – in disappointment - leaves the room. The reader soon suspects that this is a kind of final act of the comedian before he disappears from the scene of life.

The storytelling point of view is also important: it is a spectator who sits in the room, a retired judge, who was been explicitly invited by Gerstein and apparently was a childhood friend of his 40 years ago. Gradually it becomes clear that that spectator is also wearing a very heavy "backpack", full of unprocessed feelings. Through this narrator the intense interaction between Gerstein and the public is shown, mixed with personal emotions of the judge.

So, this is not a light book at all, and although occasionally it is peppered with a discharging (usually politically incorrect) joke, throughout the book the drama and fierceness become even stronger, certainly when Gerstein begins a very drawn-out story about how he as a 14-year-old was suddenly called away from a youth camp in the desert, for a death in his family. He describes in detail the long journey to the funeral, all the while ignorant of who precisely is dead, and constantly in his mind pass images of his father and mother that both endear and repel, and he has the impression that he will determine who has just died. Grossman clearly builds up here to a climax, in which the feeling of guilt of Gerstein about the death of one of his parents is central.

In the end the anti-climax follows, when everyone is gone and only the spectator-judge and Gerstein themselves remain and talk to each other softly on stage. Gerstein is a wreck, literally and figuratively, but still says goodbye to the (absent) audience in style. At that point you are also exhausted as a reader after the roller coaster on which Grossman has taken you.

With this novel, Grossman gives a new face to the concept of "tragicomic". Dovaleh Gerstein is a very fragile person, and what he does is very much in line with the self-chastisement that is said to be so typical of Jewish humour, maybe he stands for Israel itself (at least that is suggested in various reviews). From a technical and stylistic point of view, this novel is simply stunning and due to the personal drama and uncomfortable intensity it certainly makes a great impression. For me, it may not be Grossman's best (I was a bit disappointed by the proposed climax), but the author shows an impressive example of his abilities. (2.5 stars)