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Summary: In Celebration of Women
Review: How many people have read the Old Testament and wondered what all those characters were really like? What do we really know of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not to mention the women who were their wives and daughters, slaves and concubines? The Red Tent tells the story of those first Old Testament women, of Leah and Rachael, Zilpah and Bilhah, and of Dinah, the narrator, the only daughter of all four sisters, all four the wives of Jacob. We touch on the story of Jacob and Esau with Jacob stealing Esau's birthright from their father Isaac, and the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers and who subsequently became a famous ruler in Egypt. Those are the stuff of infinite Sunday School lessons that children have learned for centuries.
But who has told the story of the Bible's women? Not many until Anita Diamant gave us The Red Tent. This is the story of Biblical women's lives and hardships, joys and sorrows, humiliations and triumphs that is not told in theBible. Set apart from male society almost exclusively except for serving and sex, these brave women spent themselves in lives of hard work, spinning, weaving, grinding grain and making bread, tending gardens and cooking meals that they ate only after the men were served and finished.
The red tent is the literal and symbolic icon of female society where the women went once a month for three days as the moon goddess visited them; where they were allowed to rest, tell stories, sing and make offerings to their gods of fertility and harvest, of the moon, stars and universe. The ancient beliefs, traditions and superstitions lived on in the stories that were told each month from mother to daughter in the red tent.
This is also a story of early midwives who aided births and kept women and babies alive with their skills and feminine empathy. The plot takes us into the land of Canaan with Jacob's family and ultimately to Egypt where Joseph and Dinah reunite after many years. The heinous deeds perpetrated by the sons of Jacob live in infamy throughout all time, but their victims eventually find redemption and peace.
The Red Tent has passages that bring tears of recognition to women of all ages; women share the procreative spark that is theirs alone and which hence, endows them with power and unity that no man can ever be privy to. What a wonderful book to celebrate the joy and sorrow of being a woman, not to mention the ultimate priviledge!
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Summary: Don't let the first half turn you away from this book
Review: For the first half of this book, I had a very difficult time keeping all the characters straight. The book moved slowly, I didn't understand who was narrating at first, and I was frequently turning back to refer to the family tree printed in the beginning. Fortunately, I continued reading. Once I got to about page 200, I could not put the book down. I would read other fiction by this author.
Rating: 
Summary: Trivializing
Review: This book was highly recommended to me by friends I respect and given to me as a holiday gift by a priest. I was very disappointed. I think it is a cheapening of the human experience by focusing on the physical and reducing women to primarily "cow-like" experiences and men to "ram-like" behavior. In other words, I prefer my historical novels with more dimensions than bodily functions. I read it all with near-disgust at the lack of spirituality in a historically spiritual era and because of the reduction of women to a merely animal level. I found it a disappointing, one-dimensional book.
Rating: 
Summary: Wonderful Concept
Review: Ms. Diamant's novel, "The Red Tent," is such a wonderful concept - biblical characters seen from a woman's point of view. Wonderful read!
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Summary: Did I miss something???
Review: I am amazed when searching through the recommended reads and find this book constantly on the lists. Our book club tried reading it and none of us could even get through it much less find anything worthwile to recommend it. Maybe because I didn't finish it there was something in the end that would have brought it all together for me??? It just didn't hold my interest to get more than half way through and believe me, I tried. THUMBS DOWN to this one!!
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Summary: What A Nice Surprise!
Review: I read about this book on a review board and decided to pick it up. I am very happy that I did. Being raised in a "bible thumping,cultist atmosphere" I had heard all of these Old Testament stories before. I was so pleasantly surprised to read a fictional story like Diamant's told from a female perspective as opposed to the male dominated fiction of the Bible. The strength that the women in the Red Tent gathered from each other and the bonding that took place was truly inspiring. It's also nice to read about some of the other religions/beliefs that were celebrated during this time in history that were not all Jewish/Christian. Whether religious zealots believe it or not, the worship of the goddess was in full swing in parallel with Judaism and worshipping different deities also was commonplace. This book gives us a window into how things might have been during this time in history and does a beautiful job of leaving out all of the "Jacobs Ladder and wrestling with an angel" mumbo jumbo. I do not agree with a reviewers comment intimating that Diamant had studied/stolen the ideas of midwifery from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Any person who studies women's "place/role" in history knows that a midwife played a very intricate part in society and that childbirth has always been a major factor in the bonding of women. I doubt that Diamant had to get this information from "Midwives Tale". She could have gotten it in any social history book that concentrated on Women in Society. Kudos to Diamant for having the guts to tell a "bible" story in a different light. My only hope is that she might tell us about Bathsheba, Delilah or Esther next. What about Deborah? I will be looking forward to it!
Rating: 
Summary: nice beginning, but
Review: the story line drifts off toward the end. While the first half of the book entertains with details of the main characters surroundings, especially the women's lifes, the second half of the book disappoints. Once the "rape" occurs, the author limits herself to broadly developing the main character (if that), rather than giving us more information on other characters. This book is a nice, quick read, but not very consistent.
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Summary: Magical expansion of biblical story...
Review: Before reading The Red Tent, I knew very little about the Bible, aside from a few names and stories. The description and reviews that I'd read compelled me to give it a shot anyway, and I am incredibly glad that I did. The Red Tent is definitely one of the best - well-written, fascinating, creative, etc. - novels that I've read in the past few years. Little is mentioned in the Bible about Dinah, Jacob's only daughter - this much I know - and The Red Tent is a fictionalized account of her life from her own perspective. The result is magical, from Dinah's relationship with her own mother and her father's other wives, to her marriage, role as mother; all is depicted so realistically and lovingly that it is easy to get lost in the story. Dinah's life is not an easy one but Diamant so easily balances all that happens to her to prevent the book from becoming too maudlin or tragic - somehow, Dinah transcends it all. In addition to this wonderful female character, Diamant has recreated the vibrant environment and times in which she exists - obviously, a great deal of research went into this book and the details provide a sense of what life could have been like lo those many years ago. Diamant incorporates all of the information she gathered in such a way that it complements the story naturally without seeming forced or without too much emphasis placed on the historical context, as can sometimes be the case. As I read this book on the subway to and from work, many women approached me to let me know how much they had loved the book and how much it meant to them, something that has never happened before. As I got deeper into the book and became more entranced I began to understand its power. This simply is not a book to be missed. It provides a window into the lives of women in biblical times and into the soul of one courageous, gentle woman. I cannot recommend it more highly and hope that this book will continue to find the audience it deserves.
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Summary: Boring and Bland
Review: The Red Tent lacks many things that would make it a good book. One of the most important is some sense of purpose. The story is long and, apart from a few incidents, incredibly boring. There are only so many ways any writer can describe labour and childbirth. The main character is colourless and bland. She has momentary flashes of personality but in general I did not care what happened to her. Her aunts are far better developed and although interest in them ends abruptly they hold the first half of the book together. The second half of the book is a convoluted plot to get Dinah to the right place and time to reunit with her once beloved Joseph. By the end of the book I had no interest in any of the characters and was annoyed with the insipidness of the book. As an attempt to flesh out the role of women in the Old Testament the book is a partial success. As a work of literature it falls far short of being a well written and a work of merit.
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Summary: An important, thought-provoking book
Review: I resisted this novel for a long time--a fictional account of a minor player of the Bible? Sounded deadly dull to me. But after many recommendations, I picked it up, and was pleasantly--incredibly--surprised. This is one of the best books I've read this year. I took a class on women in the Bible in college, and I only wish this book had been a part of it. The Red Tent reminds you that the "characters" in the Bible were human--they were real people, with real dreams, real desires, and yes, real bodily functions. Dinah's story is not a happy one, yet it is inspiring to see how she gathered the fortitude and courage to continue with her life in the face of unspeakable tragedy. It is a profoundly anti-Christian/anti-Judaism book, but it's time people wake up and realize this is what it was like. Christianity has not been around forever, and this shows what like was like before the birth of Christ. The writing is wonderful, clear, and evocative, and reading this novel is time well spent.
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