The Red Tent

Rating:
Summary: Interesting at first but.......
Review: Since I love the stories about the patriarchs in the Old Testament, I enjoyed the first part of this book. Reading about how the women lived, trying to visualize them as real people, was fascinating. However, as the book moved on, I was disappointed. The main character Dinah is a victum who needs to be constantly rescued. She never stands on her own two feet. Her life is sad until the end when she is again rescued by a man. She never makes an effort to have her own life until a man saves her. I also found the description of Joseph as a weak egotist who needed her to go with him to visit his father Jacob, hard to believe. Also, Jacob was described as illiterate. That may or may not have been true, but was she any better?

Rating:
Summary: Lovely story!
Review: I often take books from my mother's book shelf. She's an avid reader and has superb taste in books. I over looked this book on her shelf for years. It just didn't seem to be my kind of book. I was finally talked into giving it a try and boy am I glad! This book is beautiful! You have to pay some attention to all the names. It's not the easiest read I've ever had, but it's not the hardest either, and well worth it! There is a family tree of all the names you need to know in the front of the book so don't let that keep you from reading this wonderful book. I highly recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful, profound, and perfect.
Review: This was my favorite book when I finished it more than two years ago, and it remains my favorite book to this day. I carry a copy of it in my car and I frequently re-read it. It has been a constant inspiration to me.

"The Red Tent" contains some of the most beautiful language I've ever read. It turns Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, Zilpah, and Dinah into living, breathing people, with real passions and desires that were left out of the Biblical telling of this story.

Rating:
Summary: A new take on a great story
Review: Anita Diamant is a great story teller, but she doesn't just tell a story in this book, she recreates a world. I love to read Scripture, but there is very little, if anything, in the entire Bible that is told from a woman's point of view. The Red Tent gives a voice to Dinah, who is absolutely voiceless in the Bible, where her story is told by others. The author draws compelling, flawed characters who are a joy to get to know. And her take on the competition between Leah and Rachel, and the different roles they fill in Jacob's life, is totally believable.

Her depiction of the events in Dinah's life are vastly different from the Biblical version. That's why they call it fiction.

Rating:
Summary: the story of some of the first women
Review: This book is about the story of Dinah, whose mother is Leah, first wife of Jacob. In the Bible, the main thread of the story of Jacob. The women whom he married - who happen to all be sisters -- are but a footnote.

Here, Dinah tells of how her mothers grew up in the house of their father Laban, and their status depended on whose mother was who. Thus, Leah and Rachel are the first wives, and their sisters Zilpah and Bilhah are considered their handmaidens and thus the lesser wives of Jacob. However, they are all mothers to Dinah, the only daughter born to any of them, although she neds up having 11 brothers in all.

The story follows Dinah's understanding of her life and the women around her, as they congregtae in the red tent, a place reserved for the women during menstruation, where they form a bond of sisterhood.

However, jealousies and tribal honor arise as Dinah chooses a husband when she is of marriageable age (after her first period, in these times.) This changes the course of her life dramatically, and I though the tale of her adult life was far more fascinating than her childhood and who begat whom.

This is a great read, a welcome departure from all that chick-lit out there.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing and touching
Review: My godmother bought me this book and I have to say I read it in 2 days savoring every word. I was so intrigued by it that I decided to go and read the book of genesis. Yes it was inaccurate but her purpose was to tell a story, a story that a grandmother might tell her granddaughter verbatium. Just read it, look at it and you will get lost in the beautiful story.

Rating:
Summary: Women and History
Review: Really 4.5 *'s. I was first put off by the description of this book. My mother told me that it was about the women in the bible.....just did not really grab my attention. Regardless I picked this book out for my book club anyway. We just loved it. Diamant took different stories from the bible and filled in fictional events. It was so good. I loved how she brought us into these individual's lives, describing so much that is so foreign to us. Read it with a friend so that you can discuss the lives of these women.

Rating:
Summary: A celebration of being a woman/mother
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is true as others have said that this book is not factually correct in relation to the Bible, but it is not meant to be. In the beginning of the book the author states that it is a work of fiction. She no where claims the book to be factually or historically correct. Dinah is only mentioned in the Bible a couple times, so it stands to reason any story of 'her life' would be fiction. That said, I thought the book was wonderful! I loved the whole concept of the Red Tent where the women gathered monthly to rest, communicate, bond and support each other. The roles of woman and mother was honored and cherished, and the beginning of a young woman's cycle was celebrated. When did modern day women begin to call this "the curse?" The book made me wonder who I would have in my Red Tent; who would be my 'sisters' in this celebration of life. Certainly not as many as in the book, but that would be no surprise. The numbers would increase with the number of wives! The descriptive writing in the book really made me imagine I could smell the water, or the flowers in the gardens. I highly recommend this book to anyone. You do need to not compare it to the Bible, and read it as a book of fiction to really feel and enjoy the powerful stories of the women in The Red Tent.

Rating:
Summary: The God of Jacob's compassion
Review: First of all let me say that I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was extremely insightful, beautifully told, mesmerizing and emotional. I don't often feel all those things in one book.
To all the people who have posted reviews saying that they threw down the book in disgust/threw it in the garbage/gave it to the dog, I have a question: why did you think that you were going to like this book? The chances are that the fundamentalists that take the Bible as literally as possible in 2004 aren't going to like a woman's story of Jacob and his sons.
I am a Christian, but this book made me realise something I had never thought about before. Jacob and his sons slaughter the city dwellers, murdering them in their beds. Where is the God of Jacob's compassion for those people? Why, then, does God forgive Jacob and his sons, reiterating that they are his chosen people?
Something to think about for those reviewers who pray for mercy on Anita Diamant.
A wonderful novel.

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, compelling novel!
Review: This novel blew me away, and I think that most people would react that way. However, don't read this book if it offends you when someone takes liberties with Biblical history. The Red Tent is the story of Dinah, Jacob's daughter. She narrates in a beautiful voice that is all at once lyrical and poetic. Her story, while heartbreaking, is also a celebration of what it is to be female. She begins telling us about what happened before she was born, how Jacob came to have four wives, how his sons were born. Her focus is on the wives and their tradition of abiding in the red tent during menses. While they are there, the woman bond and after she, the only surviving daughter of Jacob, is born, she spends much time there with her mothers, learning female traditions of midwifery. Her story is familiar, yet not the same as in the good book. Diamante's story is breathtakingly imaginative. Leah and her sisters come alive in this novel. While reading it, you are in the red tent. The characters are believable, the story compelling. We follow Dinah throughout her life and experiences. Her pain and her pleasures come alive. This novel comes alive from the first page and you won't be able to put it down. Highly recommended...