Israeli Author David Grossman's Novel "A Horse Walked into a Bar" The Human Comedy of Grief & Guilt

Israeli writer David Grossman (b Israel 1954) is a highly acclaimed & awarded writing of both fiction & non-fiction.  His most recent novel "A Horse Walked into a Bar" received the Int'l Man Booker Prize 2017.  This is a novel of trenchant searching for the unique essence of each individual, "that thing that comes out of person without his control."  Grossman's profound genius for storytelling is artful & impassioned.  He spins a complex yarn that threads together 3 lives in a masterful game of chess.  Dovelah Greenstein is the star of this show.  He's a standup comic with a routine that includes a litany of jokes "A horse walks into a bar and asks the barman for a Goldstar on tap." One of  many running comedy bits that start but veer off, not into a laughable punchline but quixotically through his pathetic & self-effacing life.  In the audience is a retired prestigious judge,  Avishai Lazar, with whom Dovelah remembers as having a brief but meaningful friendship in their youth.  The great thing about humor, sometimes it allows you to laugh allowing for a brief reprieve from torment.  The clever contrivance of novel unfolds relentlessly over one standup routine Dovelan delivers with the intent of obtaining some validity or penance from his old friend whom he's not seen in 4 decades.  Dovelah is a rapacious raconteur able to elicit a connection with his audience that stirs up a murky pleasure both sickening & alluring.  The reader becomes captive to Dovelah's routine; a loose camouflage to convey the oppressive guilt & remorse he endures.  Avishai surprises himself by agreeing to come to listen & staying for Dovelah outpourings on stage.  Avishai is jolted into recalling memories of his life which have been suppressed and the grief he harbors for his wife.  He consents to provide a brief "judicial" reckoning for Dovelah from watching his performance art.  Both men are surprised by the presence of a diminutive woman in the audience who recalls Dovelah as the kind boy in her neighborhood who walked on his hands giving a topsy-turvy view on things.  She adds her own adamant vantage of the boy she remembers.  The consummate force of this remarkable work is how it grasps the reader with its stunning recognition of what it means to survive.  Just to be alive, how subversive it is and what a rare treasure to be able to experience life.   "A Horse Walked in a Bar" is a strenuous journey through life's suffering mitigated with the miracles of love & laughter.   I recommend reading this novel & nominating Grossman for a Nobel Prize in Literature.