A horse came into the bar… 7
Translator's Note … 319

The more I imagine it, the more mystifying the pain of a single human being becomes.
Digging into the source of that pain thoroughly and persistently
A stand-up comedian's last performance

A small club located in the Israeli city of Netanya.
A stand-up comedian takes the stage.
The name is Dovalle G.
He celebrated his fifty-seventh birthday today and was dressed in ripped jeans, red suspenders with gold clips, and cowboy boots.
Dovalle, who stands “barely 158 centimeters tall even on a good day” and is so thin that his ribs are horribly exposed, begins his performance in front of an audience of various ages and occupations seated at several tables.
She calls herself a “laughing prostitute” and uses exaggerated gestures and a lively voice to make mischievous jokes to the audience.
And among the audience is the novel's narrator, retired judge Avishai.

Avishai, who had shared a brief, open friendship with Dovale during their childhood, had completely forgotten about him for over forty years.
Then one day, Dovalle suddenly calls and asks me to come see his show.

“The point is, I thought about this a lot, mulled it over for a long time, and couldn’t make up my mind, and I wasn’t sure, but then I finally realized that you were the only person I could ask for this.” (…)
“Keep talking,” I said.
“I wish you would look at me,” he spat out violently.
“If you look at me, really look at me, then I would like you to tell me.”
“What are you telling me?”
“What you saw.” _From the text

Dovalle continues his performance by sometimes making funny jokes and sometimes mocking the audience.
The audience, a mix of people who have clearly seen him perform several times, first-timers, and people who once knew him, initially enjoys his jokes and taunts.
But the show takes a completely different turn when Dovalle begins to tell the story of his childhood, more specifically, the military camp he attended when he was fourteen and the personal events that followed.


Through Dovaleh's performance, the audience, including Avishai, learn that Dovaleh was raised by a father who provided practical care for his son but was also abusive, and a mother who survived the Holocaust and suffered from depression and suicidal tendencies, but who also expressed love for her son.
We also hear that he was bullied severely by other children at school because he was smaller than his peers.
Avishai recalls the time he was in the military camp with Dovale, the last day he saw him, as he hears what he knew (that Dovale had been bullied and he had ignored him) and what he didn't know (that he had been abused by his parents).
And while other audience members express their dissatisfaction with the performance and leave one by one, he continues to sit there and silently watch his performance, the source of his suffering.

Recorded with the 'eyes of a loving witness'
A man's desperate survival story

This novel is written in a format that could be considered a recording of a performance from beginning to end.
Although flashbacks to Avishai's past life are interspersed here and there, the reader has the unique experience of reading this novel and simultaneously watching a stand-up comedy performance.
The novel's formal uniqueness becomes even more apparent when we recall that the title of this book, "A Horse Walked into a Bar," is a phrase often used as a cliché at the beginning of jokes in English-speaking countries.
However, the actual content of the novel completely betrays the expectations of a typical comedy that the title suggests.
Rather than a comedy, this work is closer to the survival story of a man who has lived his entire life in pain.
And Avishai, who sees, records, and conveys this survival story to the reader, only knew the protagonist briefly during his childhood.

Even Dovaleh cannot explain exactly why he asked Avishai, of all people, to watch the performance and tell him what he saw.
But he instinctively knows that Avishai is the right person for the job.
Avishai was a judge who vowed to find out “what lies beyond the words that describe a person, beyond what happened to them, beyond what is wrong and twisted in them.”
Avishai was also the one who was there at the very moment when the suffering that Dovala had carried all his life began, but he did nothing and forgot about him and lived on.
A faint sense of guilt for having lived in ignorance of Dovalle's suffering revives in Avishai's heart, and he is able to watch Dovalle with "the eyes of a loving witness."
In doing so, Avishai can become someone who can witness “what just flows out of someone uncontrollably,” someone who can feel Dovalle’s pain deep within and understand that he survived that painful life.


The skill of a master who succeeded in a nearly impossible challenge

“Every comma, every word, and every drop of sweat shed while joking
None of them are unrelated to the theme of the work.

The technical mastery of this work is incredible.” _The New York Times

As the New York Times noted, and as the reason for its Man Booker International Prize win, which it described as “a novel that demonstrates a masterful mastery of the writer’s craft,” A Horse Walks Into a Bar is a work that highlights David Grossman’s exceptional skills as a writer.
In his previous work, "Out of Time," Grossman wrote about the profound loss of parents who have lost a child in a way that was difficult to classify into a specific genre, as if it were a prose poem or a play. In "A Horse Walked Into a Bar," Grossman has brilliantly demonstrated his genre-transcending writing ability, creating a novel that is incomparable to any other novel.


But what makes this novel even more special is Grossman's empathetic voice contained within its novel format.
Grossman's voice, which illuminates Dovalle's personal tragedy and the tragedy of the times, is based on a meticulous exploration of humanity, a deep understanding, and a warm gaze.
As Professor Jeong Yeong-mok, who translated the novel, said, “It feels like it gives everything a novel can give, whether it’s in technique, content, or true emotion.”
It's about telling an unimaginably large and expansive story set on a single comedy show stage in a small club.
A novel that perfectly blends sharp satire, deep insight into life, and warm empathy for human wounds.
David Grossman has masterfully accomplished this nearly impossible challenge.