Poll

This one is tough! I love each of these stories so much. Alice Munro is the greater author here, and if I'm being honest "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" is probably the greater story, but "Travis, B."'s exploration of desperate loneliness, underneath the big sky of Montana, is tremendous.

I don't know what to do here.

I'm going with the bear :-)

It's the bear for me. It remindered me of where I have been before.

I prefer Travis, B.

It doesn't matter to how I voted, but why the title "The Bear Came Over the Mountain"? Did I miss something, like perhaps a bear, or a mountain?

I read The Bear title as having a plural amalgamated meaning drawn from the children's song; and idioms such as "that's a bear" and a "bear market", the former idiom connoting a difficult, overwhelming situation, the latter a diminution or deterioration; and also the verb "to bear", to endure. The bear is scrambling out of the woods toward you except this one is coming down a mountain, like a boulder; he's not receding over the mountain, he's bearing down on you. Also, the melody for The Bear Went over the Mountain is the same as For He's A Jolly Good Fellow, which is of course, both ironic and satirical. And the bear who went over the mountain was looking, but not recognizing anything different from the opposite side. The philandering husband was looking for greener pastures on the other side of the mountain, not acknowledging the lives he troubled, so then trouble, the sleeping bear of senility, came looking for him.

This is no contest for The Bear.

The Bear keeps moving

I voted for "The Bear Came Over The Mountain" based on remembering liking it a lot when I read it a few years ago, but also because "Travis B" seemed so odd (in a bad way). The first part is overstuffed history of the character and exposition. Then the meeting of the main characters seems very contrived. Then Chet just acts so creepy I could not understand why Beth did not bolt in fear. The descriptions of his loneliness and social isolation sound more "serial killer" than just sad to me. I also wondered about the fact that a non-native woman is writing about a Cheyenne man might be problematic. Is he Cheyenne because that makes him exotic? Or because it is supposed to inform us of his shyness and isolation? Why is he Cheyenne at all? It seemed to be like some sort of tokenism was going on there. Issues of the portrayal of native people by non-native writers have become more prominent in the last year here in Canada, so it is hard to read this and not be reminded of that and all the concerns that have been raised.

I have been planning to see the film "Certain Women" for some time, and I think I will try to see it very soon now. I notice in a summary of the film that the section based on "Travis B" has changed the character of Chet to a woman and she is played by Lily Gladstone, who is herself of Indian heritage. I am interested what difference those differences might make and how, in general, the film might inform my thoughts about the story.

This matchup, like the previous one - Cather vs. Dubus, was a tough one, but for the opposite reason - I liked them both. But in the end there was just more substance to "The Bear" and so he coasts to victory.
Yesterday I backed two losers and today two winners. Let's see what tomorrow brings... Hope I can keep up my participation. Thanks for organizing this, Trevor.

Thank you for joining in, Rasu.

While I voted for "Travis, B." I'll freely acknowledge it's for personal reasons (though I do think it's a fine and finely written story that examines a great deal more than meets the eye).

I'll push the Reichardt adaptation one more time. Of course, I failed to mention that "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" was also made into a fine film by Sarah Polley called Away from Her.

A look at those two films would also be a worthwhile exercise!