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The Red Tent
by Anita Diamant
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Picador (1998-09-15)
ISBN: 0312195516
EAN: 9781864486797
Dewy Decimal #: 813.54
Paperback: 336 pages
Edition: 1st Picador USA Pbk. Ed
SKU: BX048-070916005
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: Clean and shiny. Very minor wear, near new. Spine uncreased, pgs crisp, clean, tight, unmarked. No remainder mark.
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Editorial Reviews
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Amazon.com
The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter, Dinah. Told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah (who only received a glimpse of recognition in the Book of Genesis), we are privy to the fascinating feminine characters who bled within the red tent. In a confiding and poetic voice, Dinah whispers stories of her four mothers, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah--all wives to Jacob, and each one embodying unique feminine traits. As she reveals these sensual and emotionally charged stories we learn of birthing miracles, slaves, artisans, household gods, and sisterhood secrets. Eventually Dinah delves into her own saga of betrayals, grief, and a call to midwifery. "Like any sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges," Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah. "They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember." Remembering women's earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this magnificent book. In fact, it's been said that The Red Tent is what the Bible might have been had it been written by God's daughters, instead of her sons. --Gail Hudson
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Product Description
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.
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Customer Reviews
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Wonderful, despite all the hype
Rating  (5)
Date: 2008-08-27
Just fascinating! Anita Diamant's "The Red Tent," is a chick book (although my husband also likes it), but extremely well written and researched. Diamant's fluid and lovely writing style, historical perspective, thoughtful observations, action, and the interaction between characters is gripping. I resisted reading it because of all the hype, given that such popular books are typically not good literature. This is not true of this book. The topic of menstuation does permeate the story a bit much for my taste: but that subject binds the themes of fertility, love, birth, and family, around which the story revolves. The historical research that is interwoven in this book is just fascinating, particularly the segregated lifestyle of the early Jews and the worshipping of Canaanite gods and the Hebrew god in the same family (and by the same family members). It's like Joseph's Campbell's insights about the evolution of our concepts about God have been brought to life in this very good novel. From the reviews and the publicity, I feared it would be too feminism oriented and too religiously preachy, but it is neither. I also highly recommend "The Last Days of Dogtown" by the same author.
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Felt like the author was THERE.
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-08-18
In writing The Red Tent, Diamant seems to have actually lived the history of which she writes. Very well considered, historically accurate, thoughtful, interesting, and a great story (of course). Really gives food for thought.
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The Red Tent Review
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-08-01
This book had me hooked and I could hardly put it down. It's fair enough to say that getting started can be a challenge with all the unfamiliar biblical names. Get past the introduction of characters and you're full steam ahead. Anita Diamant takes a biblical story, then tells it from the viewpoint of the women. Their secrets, their stories, how they lived, what they did for each other just to survive and the bond they all formed. I related very well to all the characters which jumped out from the page and greeted me. A well written book I almost wish she would write more about other biblica women.
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Like A Wrinkle In Time
Rating  (4)
Date: 2008-07-30
I enjoyed reading this book immensely. I approached it as I did "A Wrinkle In Time" in that though it was historically based, the conversations and personality traits of the characters were not necessarily factual..however this in no way took away my interest in what was being said nor did it remove me from feeling I was a part of the experiences Dinah had. This book is a gift and I think Ms. Diamant for it.
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Fascinating, but at the same time tedious in parts
Rating (4)
Date: 2008-07-30
About two thirds of the way through the book, I would have given it a mere two stars. I felt that the narrative was unfolding slowly, and too much time was spent providing minute details about the everyday lives of these characters. I also found descriptions to be repetitive. Overall, it really was pretty yawn-inducing, up until the point when Dinah starts menstruating. I like to read books in one sitting, or depending on the length, in several concentrated blocks. With this one, however, it took me a full two weeks to finish the first two parts of the book. Not a good sign. But I hate abandoning books, so I pressed on.
So why the 4 stars in the end? Because I found myself moved despite the slow start. It made me feel connected to all the women who have come before me, who faced unimaginable struggles and intense pain and suffering to bring life into the world. On the last pages of the book, there is a line that says, "We are all born of the same mother.". I wasn't particularly interested in this sort of sentiment when I started the book, but by the end of it, I understood it completely.
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