Poll

I have not read Babel's story yet, but in googling to find it I have to ask: What's the deal on the spelling of the last word of the title? It seems that maybe Babel spelled it "dovecot" and it is most commonly spelled "dovecote", but here we have "dovecoat". If this turns out NOT to be a story about a guy with a cool coat made out of dove feathers, I'm going to be PISSED!!!

Funny.

There will be (bird) blood, so not to worry.

Animals will be caged and tethered for human amusement.

I agree with David that the second half of "The Management of Grief." does not compare to the first. As the focus shifted from individual griefs to a more political criticism, I'm afraid I lost some empathy, but with the final recounting after a passage of time, I lost interest. Perhaps Mukherjee was trying to establish the sense of acceptance in grief management theory but it did not work for me as an interesting conclusion to the story. I vote Babel.

Ha! As you’ve probably deduced, the spelling around here is me! Doubly embarrassing since I had my copy of his work open in front of me when I was starting. Could it have been autocorrect? I will leave that seed of doubt. But, yes, the version I have is “The Story of My Dovecote.”

And it gets my vote here. I guess I owe it that!

I am loath to admit it, but Management of Grief shrank a bit on its second reading rather than blooming larger, so by default, Dovecote, even though I have read it only 1.5 times, I believe there is more hiding in it that will intensify my ambivalence.

These stories are a perfect pairing. Both are stories told against the backdrop of real life terrorist actions that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. In both cases, I think the stories are overrated based on the sympathetic reactions people have to the real events. People mistake being moved by learning of the real tragedies for being moved by the stories about them. But judged solely as works of art, there is a lot less there than people think.

Of the two stories, the one that seems to me to be more artfully written is "The Story of my Dovecot" (I'm going with the "--cot" spelling!). He does a lot more to paint a picture of the society and context of the child's life before the tragedy arrives. It could easily have been a different story had the pogrom not happened. "The Management of Grief", by contrast, is wholly dependent on the tragedy. The description of the world from the child's perspective also gives that story something more. So I voted for "The Story of my Dovecot".

Another tough call for me.  I know I've read" The Dovecote" before, but this might possibly be the first time I've read anything by Bharati Mukherjee.  I think she does a very good job of dealing with grief in this story.   Mrs. Bhave explains it plainly.

      "Nothing I can do will make any difference,” I say. “We must all grieve in our own way.”
     "But you are coping very well. All the people said, Mrs. Bhave is the strongest person of all. Perhaps if the others could see you, talk with you, it would help them.”
     "By the standards of the people you call hysterical, I am behaving very oddly and very badly, Miss Templeton." I want to say too,  I wish I could scream, starve, walk into Lake Ontario, jump from a bridge.  "They would not see me as a model. I do not see myself as a model."

  But of course the story is more than just about  how to manage grief, it adequately deals with the common problem of misunderstandings when outsiders, well meaning though they may be, attempt to impose their cultural norms on immigrant communities.

I think Babel is great and the Dovecote is also pretty powerful, but today I go for Ms. Mukherjee.