At times it seems as if the comedian on stage is daring for his audience to leave, for his readers to put down the book. It reads like a poorly presented joke with a punchline that never comes. The performance – why won’t it end already? Luckily the novel is short. The crowd thins but Avishai remains, listening attentively as if he were still on the bench judging the comedian based on this stand-up testimony.
Like those at the other tables, Avishai is ready to walk out of the club, but he finds himself glued to his seat. He realizes how little he really knew about Dovaleh as a boy and how little he knows about him as a man. In the back, Avishai starts to remember, starts to understand. The audience gets restless some people stand up to leave the club. The jokes just aren’t funny and they’re mixed with personal stories which are hardly amusing. He tells a few jokes but the audience’s response is mostly forced laughter.
Avishai has since forgotten their childhood experiences and wonders why Dovaleh has invited him to the club.ĭovaleh’s monologue begins. At a table in the back is the story’s narrator, Avishai Lazar, a retired judge who knew Dovaleh as a boy. In A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman (Jonathan Cape, November 2016), we meet Dovaleh Greenstein as he stands on stage to entertain a mixed audience typical for an Israeli nightclub – couples, soldiers, people out for an evening’s entertainment. Sitting down for the performance the man expects an evening of comedy, jokes, one-liners, humorous anecdotes about the comedian’s life. The man has been invited to see the stand-up routine of a well-known, slightly past-his-prime comedian.
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