The Red Tent Review

Manufacturer: Picador
Author(s): Anita Diamant

ISBN: 0312195516 EAN: 9781864486797
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 336

Average Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

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Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood—the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers—Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah—the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah's story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.

User Submitted The Red Tent Reviews

November 23, 2008
Bible stories from a woman's eye
Stories of women in the Bible are few and far between. When they are included, they are often temptresses, harlots, or victims. Occassionally they are heroes. Because of the time and influences of authors and editors, their stories are limited and culled. Anita Diamant examines the life of one of these women, Dinah. In Genesis 34, the story of her rape and the revenge enacted by two of her brothers (of the 12 sons of Israel) is presented, but nothing is ever written about her again. Diamant tells her tale from Dinah's point of view. She begins by telling the stories of the wives of Jacob, which to her are as important as the life of Dinah.

Diamant shows her love of Biblical history and scholarship by presenting the smallest details and showing their importance. She embraces the tone of a woman of the time. She takes every scrap of mention of the women in Jacob's life and weaves a beautiful and compelling tale. She creates characters with spirits. You'd swear they were women you could meet soon, women you could admire and learn from. While reading many Bible stories, I've often be confused by the motives of the characters and wanted to know why they acted a certain way. I knew why the women in the book did everything they did. I still don't understand why the men acted the way they did.

This is a very female story. The title of the book should make that obvious-it's named for the isolation of women during their periods. Every day life is important-cooking, cleaning, weaving, child-rearing. Some of the best writing she does is when she describes childbirth. I rarely get weepy when reading, but I did choke up when Dinah describes the need for a special song or prayer for a mother when she first looks upon her newborn. She also describes the distance women in this time had from Jacob's god and reminds the reader that when this story was written, the world was still polytheistic, ruled by many gods, of which, the god of Abraham was one.

I've read about midrashes, stories that rabbi's wrote to explain the actions of the characters in the Bible or because there seems to be a gap. The story of Lilith as the first wife of Adam is one of these, if memory serves me correctly. I think that Diamant wrote this in that tradition. I commend her efforts and wish that other novels taking on the lives of women of the Bible were so well-written and concieved. This is an interesting one to read with The Handmaid's Tale (Everyman's Library).

November 11, 2008
Literary Bread and Water- Will Make You Feel Alive
This book is the best book I've read in a long time. It is literary bread and water: fleshy with life, sustaining and fulfilling, yet clean and unadorned and quenching. It is the story of the life of Woman, told through the life of one woman. At times we see through the eyes of a girl-child, observing so many new details with a slow hand, and this first part of the book is luxurious and comfortable. Then you are suddenly a woman speeding through painful, empty years, and then finally savoring the last slow memories of the sweet years before death. Dinah, the woman, is a character mentioned in the Bible, though in that text her story is short and black and white. This telling is anything but. A multitude of characters with unfamiliar names is handled with grace and genius, even after asking myself "Why can I tell all of these strange people apart and remember exactly who they are even after they haven't been mentioned for whole chapters? It is an untraceable brilliance--I felt like I knew and could see four mothers, twelve brothers, countless acquaintances, two lovers, children, and every supernumerary character with only one line of description concerning them dropped here or there. Nothing that I have read has captured the entire human experience in such touching and vivid terms as The Red Tent. It is definitely one of those books that you can't finish in public- you have to save those last five pages for your empty bedroom and a box of tissues, for nothing has ever made me feel so alive.

November 10, 2008
A must read.
Even as a Christian and considering the liberty she takes with biblical characters, I believe this is a book to be read by all women. So beautiful.

November 6, 2008
The Red Tent
The Red Tent is one of the best books I have ever read! It was plausible, and it taught me a lot about the women of this period. I think every woman should read it. I enjoyed it so much, I bought my step-daughter a copy so she could read it. Everyone I know who has read the book has loved it! Anita Diamant shows an incredible talent for story telling in this book. I look forward to reading more of her books.

November 4, 2008
wonderfully engrossing
I would reread this book without hesitation!

the descriptions so vivid...

the story telling is supreme. the author really uses the english language to her advantage.

One can sympathize with the main character Dinah. Sometimes I wish women still had a red tent to congregate in... sigh

November 3, 2008
Pagan women in an early Jewish world
Anita Diamant, The Red Tent
This book tells a fictionalized story of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. It's a story of the women of ancient Hebrew society, with emphasis on the wives of Jacob. Though Dinah makes only a cameo appearance in the Hebrew bible, Diamant manages to milk quite a novel out of very little raw material.

As a guy, I am definitely not in the target audience for this book, which is undoubtedly marketed as "chick lit." (The Amazon reviewers, I note, are overwhelmingly women.) So let me speak to the guys out there: this is a really good book. Diamant focuses on the sisterhood of the red tent, where women retreat during menses and childbirth, but she manages to give us a convincing reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew world. The characters are real, and the setting feels right.

The most striking aspect of this book has less to do with the book than with the author. Diamant is a convert to Judaism who has written several books on the practices of contemporary Judaism. However, this book is remarkably pagan. She emphasizes the pagan practices of the women, which she juxtaposes to the Jewish (or Yahwist) practices of the men. This feminist narrative sides with the women, of course, which means that the author's voice sympathizes with the pagans. Seeing this perspective into the world of early Judaism makes this book distinctive.

November 2, 2008
A mish mash
Interesting story but trying to be historical fiction is wrong. Its a complete mish mash.

November 2, 2008
Great!
I bought this book 2 wks ago and got it in the mail last week. It's a great book. I read it all and it's just great. If you are into the old Egyptian ways and the lives of women, Get it. It's worth it!!

October 28, 2008
A 'Might Have Been' Story
A very long time ago when I went to Sunday School there were many short stories, labeled 'might have been' stories, that used names or events from the Bible as their starting point - kind of like today's fan fiction. Their purpose was to illustrate a point, or to fill out details to make the Biblical account easier to understand. THE RED TENT is very much in the tradition of those 'might have been' stories.

Dinah, daughter of Jacob, sister of Joseph, granddaughter of Issac is, like so many women in the Bible, reduced to little more than a footnote to the men around her. In THE RED TENT we are given a glimpse into the possible lives of these shadowy women, of how they might have lived and thought and influence they may have been able to exert behind the scenes. Diamant has managed to create a wonderfully detailed description of the four wives of Jacob and their place in the world of Genesis. The familiar biblical accounts are slightly altered when they are told from the women's points of view, just as any story is slightly different when told by different people. That, coupled with Diamant's depictions, brings the characters both familiar and new of these well known stories to life.

THE RED TENT is a well told tale, one that will appeal to fans of MISTS OF AVALON as well as many others.

October 26, 2008
Amazing
This is an amazing book. Every woman should read this and pass it to a friend to pass around. You will look at the bible and woman in a whole different way. Woman were pretty strong then too.

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