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Summary: A Winner!
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. It has a great story, and the writing is very good. The vivid descriptions really make you feel that you were there. When "Deena" spends years in isolation, you actually feel the boredom and time slipping away. I'm not sure why I don't rate this 5 stars--it doesn't quite make my list of the very best books I've ever read. Maybe because of the ending--it seemed a bit lackluster and not in pace with the rest of the book.
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Summary: Captured my mind and heart.
Review: Woke up at 5:30 am just to have more time to read! I really loved this book.
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Summary: The Book Of Genesis told by women~
Review: i thought this book was inspiring. it amazed me how Diamant could have included Dina as part of genesis story and tell the biblical version in her point of view. i have read the bible and believe that this is a great novel for both believers and non-believers. it is long but totally worth the time to read. may God bless and keep you always.
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Summary: Absolute celebration of women in every role
Review: I am not Jewish. I am not Christian. Yet this author captured my undivided attention for the two days it took me to completely read. I was not familiar with the story of Dinah nor Jacob for that matter, but now I thirst for more. I never wanted to leave the lives of Jacob's wives.
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Summary: If only it was totally fiction
Review: This was a good story, even with the too strong anti-male tone. Even that wouldn't have been so bad, had the author not chosen to base this story on real people. I would've rather her have completely made up the story, including the characters, rather than trying to tie it in to anything that actually happened or anyone who actually lived.
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Summary: It was as if I lived in that world
Review: This was a beautiful, odd, sometimes painful, often thrilling book. I couldn't put it down, and finished it at 1 am, two days after I started it. I felt it had the best ending of any book I ever read. Pure poetry.
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Summary: Women need to share this book; Men need to understand it
Review: Anita Diamant's novel, a retelling of parts of the book of Genesis, evokes the world of ancient Canaan and Egypt in realistic terms. In the course of the biography, narrator Dinah tells of the hearts and life-cycles of women with undying resonance. This book has something for any interest - the studies of history, religion, relations between the sexes, or even just finely crafted sentences and stories - but more than this, the book helped me to understand the life of a woman in a way I never did before. I am going to share this book with all the women in my life, certain that my mother will cry over Dinah's fortunes and misfortunes. This work should be on everyone's bookshelf, revisited often and often, and well worn.
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Summary: Wonderful - I couldn't put it down!
Review: This is a marvelous book. It takes you right into the life of women in ancient biblical times. Ms. Diamant wove a fascinating tale of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob. We are all familiar with the tale of Joseph, her brother, but I had never read anything on Dinah. The author's description of life in Canaan and Egypt was very vivid. You feel as if you are there. It is a very moving story, and one I would recommend to everyone with an interest in historical/biblical fiction. I look forward to other books by Anita Diamant.
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Summary: This is an engrossing story with compelling characters.
Review: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is an engrossing, well-researched story with compelling and believable characters. It is especially gratifying to find a sympathetic, detailed, and believable account of an Old Testament woman's life set in this era and part of the world. The story is told from the point of view of Dinah, daughter of Jacob, a successful nomadic sheep-herder. She is raised by four different women, all wives of Jacob and becomes a midwife. Through an intriguing and dramatic turn of the plot, she ends up in Egypt. The book was a pleasure for even this non-religious feminist to read. The images are riveting. The characters are memorable. I wish I were a screenwriter because the Red Tent would make a wonderful movie.
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Summary: A Feminist rewrite trashes the Patriarchs
Review: Unlike "As a driven leaf", where statements from Talmud were woven in a Midrashic sense into a good entertaining story, "The Red Tent" is more like watching "The Prince of Egypt": beloved characters are modified (and sometimes trashed) to fit the authors agenda.Every male character (excluding the rapist, and Esau), are treated with disdain. Abraham is degraded in title, Isaac is a silly old man who has more interest in his hairlip concubine than his religion, and Jacob was supportive of paganism and died senile and incontinent. In the acknowledgment page, the author indicates her relationship to a women's studies foundation, which sheds light as to why the Matriarchs are portrayed as high priestesses of mother-earth worship. (From there, we are given long and exacting details of such worship, something that emphasises one's interest in those areas). In fact, her acknowledgment to Rabbi Lawrence Kushner is simply to Lawrence Kushner, not even giving that man the title of respect. In the book the men never pray. The only prayer we are given is one by a priestess of some goddess cult. Dina discoveres the the world of women is clean and caring, and returns to the world of men which is smelly, loud, and demanding. Joseph is a self-absorbed man whose ability as a dream interpreter was overestimated. Esau was a kind man who only wanted the best for his brother. The sons of Esau who (in Torah) attacked and robbed Jacob were really nice guys after all. Jacob blessed the wrong grandchildren because of senility. Jacob left his father-in-law with only a few things and did not have much wealth, and was embarrassed by Esau's wealth, which is why he wouldn't move in with him. While the author thanks (Rabbi) Kushner for intruducing her to Midrash, it's too bad she wasn't introduced to Torah. My only dielemma is to what to do with this book. After reading some of the other saccharine-laden reviews, I shudder to donate it to the library, lest someone else be inspired by such desecration. Well, trash day is Wednesday.
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