Rating: 
Summary: The story behind
Review: It is said that the story told in The Red Tent is like it would have been if the Bible were written by women.The main character in the book is Dinah. She is the daughter of Jacob and the sister of his 12 sons from the book of Genesis. We only get a tiny little hint on Dinah in the Bibel story, here in the book we meet first a little girl, deeply loved and spoiled by her mothers, the four wives of Jacob, later she is growing up to be a strong woman, living in a remarkable period of early history. The Red Tent tells a story of bounds between women, strong women in a society where the most important is to be a man, a strong man. Anita Diamant tells us a story it is easy to believe in. It could all have happend this way. Her pen make this period of history glow, the storytelling is so rich and the people come alive even in our world of 2001. Thank you Anita Diamant for giving me this story, reading the first books in the Bibel will never be the same for me after this. You have helped me to start using my imagination to read the story behind the story.
Britt Arnhild Lindland
Rating: 
Summary: Feeling not faith
Review: This is a sensual tour de force. Diamant lovingly describes the richness of sensations Dinah experiences in her life: the feel and smell of the midwives' herbs and medications; the taste of her lover's mouth; the strength of a river's current when her family forded. The sexual scenes were among the most effective I have read. The entire book reminded me, ironically, of the first chapter of Peter Ackroyd's recent biography of Thomas More. As a work of fiction, it shows great imagination. The plot's deviation from the story in the Bible is almost (although not quite) entirely credible. Conjuring the relations between women of 4,000 years ago, and even creating an entire women-centered religion, are praiseworthy accomplishments. That said, other aspects disappoint and annoy. The tone of the writing appears intended to breathe heightened significance into the actions of the women in the community. I have the unconfirmed feeling that this is a literary decision bordering on the political, a way of making this book feel as important as the Bible. Unfortunately, the righteous descriptions of people's sensations and reactions felt more like an educated alcoholic's expatiation on some happy aspect of their lives: it feels almost maudlin, rather than important. One can enjoy this as a great work of imagination, a description of a past that never was, just as the Harry Potter books are a great romp through a magical world that doesn't exist. However, Diamant wrote this to tell us something about our world today. Women chafe under the determination of the men, except when they act in realms unknown to males (childbirth, menstruation, worship of the Great Mother). Women's stories are recovered from the dustbin of history, and given greater attention than those androcentric stories our patriarchal culture has allowed to be passed down for the last 40 centuries. Worship of "El," the monotheistic practice that started us on today's paths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is just another option in the panoply of pagan practices. The message for today is that organized religion doesn't address women's spiritual needs, but paganism does. The problem with Diamant's underlying message is that she misses the revolutionary nature of Abram's and Jacob's practice. If you believe that the Jews reached a fundamentally new understanding of God, you cannot enjoy this book. I'll focus on Leah's reaction to Reuben's circumcision, on page 42. Dinah describes how unsure Jacob was about whether and how he would perform the operation. The next paragraph opens with "still, it had to be done." Leah agonizes and feels sick over the coming "mutilation" of her son. Further in the paragraph, we learn that the foreskin means nothing to Leah - so she doesn't care whether he gets circumcised after all? The paragraph ends with the women in the Red Tent laughing at the delicate equipment men carry between their legs. To summarize, this fellow Jacob shows up as a stranger to a tribe in some isolated hills in Palestine. He marries several of the women, then declares that his understanding of his obligation to the one God requires him to cut off the foreskin of his sons' penises. The women react to this by saying "whatever - just as long as we can still make fun of what you're born with between your legs." The Red Tent posits that it is somehow an injustice that we have preserved the men's stories from those days, and not the women's. While Dinah's story is remarkable, and she lives a wealth of interesting experiences, Diamant never suggests anything in her story worth saving over four millenia; certainly the women's response to circumcision is forgettable, particularly when one considers the significance of circumcision. Circumcision was a sign of the covenant between God and His people after Abram showed faith. It is a vitally important part of the Jewish religion at the time. It is connected to the amazing and disturbing story of Abram being willing to murder his son Isaac because a voice in his head, which Abram recognized as God, told him to do so. The story and the rite have been preserved for centuries because they plumb the depths of our souls and help to bring us into a new relationship with the divine. They say something deeply meaningful to us even today, and in every age. I recommend reading Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, for further understanding of the horror and majesty of this story. This new religion broke with prior pagan religions in that it was based on faith, rather than material gain. It required faith to practice, and the reward was faith. Dinah and the other women get material and sensual benefits from their polytheistic worship of wooden statues and other gods: her curses to her brothers are seen as effective, she feels an oceanic unity with womanhood on her first menstrual period, she prays to the gods so that women facing a death in childbirth live. But she doesn't have faith, which is everything (according to Kierkegaard, and according to monotheistic religion). Faith is the trusting relationship with God, the peace that knows no understanding (for who can understand Abram's peaceful resolution to murder his son?). As the individual relationship with God, faith is democratic - accessible to all, regardless of sex or social position - and freeing. "Oppression" means nothing to a person who has faith; the person with faith overcomes it. Despite today's female elite fashion to scorn monotheistic, "patriarchal" religion, that kind of religion offers the most effective way today to overcome perceived discrimination. This brings me to the opening of the paragraph I mention above - "still, it [circumcision] had to be done." Why, if Leah felt sick about the pending mutilation? Jacob was one man in a solitary community. His father-in-law, Laban, was not part of the covenant, and probably couldn't care less. Surely Leah could have enlisted her sisters to oppose this, if she felt afraid on her own. In previous pages, we learned that the women in Palestine could determine which of their sons received the father's birthright and which received his blessing. The implied answer, "that some man decided it and the women had no say," does not make sense. The domestic power arrangement at the time had to involve a great deal of consent from the women, a conclusion which affects how one sees today's women's movements. The Red Tent exalts feeling, sensation and emotion as our validation in life. It ignores the centrality of faith in the religions it scorns. Since I see religion as primarily a way to practice faith, rather than a way to feel better, I could not give this work more than two stars.
Rating: 
Summary: mixed bag
Review: I picked up the book and could barely stop reading it. I could not help it but to be under the spell of feeling as if I knew the women who were supposed to be Judiasm's "first women." I was close to choked up by the end of the book. Imagine, not being able to name your own child or have final say in the upbringing of the child. I was facinated by some of the comments about Laban, who I had already made guess as to being a child molester, as being so outrightly stated as such. How did all of his daughters "know" this was more than just degrading and unpleasant, or did they? Which leads me to making the one negative comment that I must make. That is, why did these women continue on in their idolotry anyway? Why, that is, did the author write it that way? The personalities are mostly well drawn but there are some bugs in the stew.
Rating: 
Summary: a human, not a divine story
Review: Diamant has used the 34th chapter of Genesis as the setting for her story "The Red Tent." That the story is based upon characters in the Bible may distress some readers. Much of the story is drawn from the short description of Dinah and her family, in the book of Genesis, but the work is decidedly fictional. She does a wonderful job of breathing life into her characters and provides intricate detail about the sights, smells, and daily routines of a time and place so remote to most of our experiences, that they cannot help but be fictional. Many of the details that she provides are what brings the story to life and gives dimensionality to the characters. Whether they are historically accurate is unknowable, and for many readers, irrelevant. Her characterizations of the males in the story are shallow, but perhaps she does so because it is a story about the lives of women in a time when they had little contact with the realities of men. Through her inattention to their characterological development, she illustrates what she apparently feels are the complexities and values of a society of women whose lives occur only tangentially to those of men. Her attention to the small details of these womens' lives gives her characters dignity and a voice that is rarely heard in a literary tradition that values accomplishment and independence in women. Her writing style is quiet. She is gentle and nonjudgemental in her descriptions of people and events, and portrays her characters and situations with a complexity that reveals much emotional and psychological depth. I found the story to be touching and honest, and I was truly sad when it was over. This book would not be a good choice, however, for people who might be offended by her scriptural or historical liberties.
Rating:
Summary: Dinah Does the Euphrates
Review: Before launching into one of my tiresome "reviews", I must admit that I bought this book, along with Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, because I share a name with the main protagonist. Shallow? You bet your bookmarks. However, my on-line book group was scheduled for a discussion of The Red Tent, hence giving me one more reason to spend 20 bucks I didn't have. Notwithstanding my appalling ignorance of all things Biblical, despite my rabidly Catholic upbringing (I wanted to be a disco nun), I know nothing beyond the book aside from Diamant's skill as a writer and the resounding voice she lent Dinah. She not only creates a compelling woman out of the cardboard woman we meet in the Old Testament, but brought to life a cast of women worthy of the many uninteresting male figures who overshadow them in the big book. One complaint: The story turns too far into the lives of those outside of Dinah's family - her mothers recede into the background. Because of this, Diamant digresses into what is largely uninteresting, at the expense of the interesting.
I wanted to know more of the two-dimensional Jacob, whom I like to call Milksop in Sandals, and Shalem the Stallion, Dinah's first hubby. But who the hell cares, read the book. It's good enough, and her name is Dinah. Dee-nah.
Rating:
Summary: The Red Tent
Review: This book was slooooooooooooooow! It is 321 pages long and it took to page 205 to even get slighltly interesting. It was very difficult to read this book as a christian. It departs so far from the Bible. If you don't know the characters in the story from the Bible well, you will be very misled! I understood that the book was fictional but why change Bible facts around? It was fine for the author to write about Dinah anything she wanted because she really isn't expounded upon in the Bible but for the author to make Rebecca into some high priestess was going abit far. Aside from changing the Bible truths all around the story was rather sad. The main character Dinah lives a miserable life and in the end she isn't even remembered by her father or brothers which she grew up with. I don't think I'll read anymore books based loosely on the Bible.
Rating:
Summary: Simply an astoundingly brilliant and beautiful book.
Review: As one who has studied Bible from both Jewish and Christian perspectives for many years, I can quite calmly and quietly assure the author's critics that she has indeed done a superb job reading, interpreting, and extrapolating the Bible to create this marvelous novel. Those crucial points of change in any culture and especially in this one, both so familiar and so wondrously strange to 21st century readers, and particularly the gradual move from matriachy to patriachy are endless fascinating. Ms. Diamant paints very humanely her ancient women and men and her conjecture as to what may have actually happened to Dinah and her family are likely close to the mark. The shared intimacy and consorority of these women is awesome and something we so lack today. Oh, the numerous scenes involving human sexuality are hot and raw, but never obscene. Please more and soon, Ms. Diamant. Truly a virtuoso effort!
Rating:
Summary: This is an Amazing Book!!
Review: I don't think I could even begin to list all the reasons why I love this book. Suffice it to say that it is probably one of the best books I have ever read, and I read a lot of books. I have recommended it to everyone I know, practically. And so far, they have all loved it. Even if it takes you a long time to usually read a book, this one won't. I have 2 kids, one of them a baby, and I managed to read this book in 2 days. Please, please, please read this book. I HOPE she writes more books. I will be buying them in hardback.
Rating: 
Summary: Simplistic and silly, it tramples the Biblical story.
Review: The Bible is a wonder of verbal economy, and there is much to be derived from contemplating the original story. Inexplicably, Diamant changes the original account with grievous results. She omits mention of Abraham's contribution as the first adherent of a monotheistic diety (focusing instead on the binding of Isaac in an impossible way). The great event of that era is that monotheism took hold during the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The women must have had an important role in furthering the idea among their children, including the concept that circumcision of 8-day-old boys represented not a "mutilation," but entry into the covenant with God. (Eight days old is a good choice for circumcision. By then, the child's health can be ascertained and the infant is young enough to heal quickly and to forget all about it.) Yet Diamant's version is drenched with idolatry among the women, and this is its greatest fault. One of the wives even calls Jacob "Baal." TILT! Diamant is so obsessed with sex that she uses it as a blunt instrument, and, in so doing, fails to call up details of what actually must have obsessed the women: their children. She invents twins where none were born. By making Bilhah black (perhaps referring to scholarship concerning whether Ethiopian Jews are descended from the tribe of Dan), Diamant didn't seem to know what to do with Bilhah's second son, Naphtali, so she made him a twin of Leah's Issachar. Not only is the book riddled with these and other needless deviations from the original story, its writing style is simple and awkward, no more than a partial cardboard diarama. One imagines that the tension between Leah and Rachel was electric, yet we get no sense of it; and the picture of Rebecca is at odds with what we know of her. This family compound must have bustled, but the scampering and squeals of little kids do not run through the story, neither their colicky cries nor skins and scrapes, nor do we see the kind of sweet chaos lots of kids can cause, nor do we know what their mothers taught them, nor do we even know where the kids slept. What of other details? What cooking utilsels were used, how did they brew beer and make bread, where did they get salt and yeast? Dinah searches for herbs, but what herbs? Diamant doesn't tell us, so we don't have any sense of the aromas. Nor does she say how chores were divided. If you have to read this book, read it carefully. Ultimately it is insulting to the principles of the three religions that are descendants of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Rating:
Summary: Fatal Flaw
Review: As I see it, The Red Tent has four major strengths: (1) It's well written. Ms. Diamont has created a living world peopled with real characters. The prose is often nearly poetic, yet the dialog is realistic, dramatic and moving. (2) Second, the book often has the taste, texture and aroma of history rather than fiction. Ms. Diamont appears to skillfully weave historical and archeological fact with imaginative story telling. The result is a work of fiction constructed on a skillfully built scaffold of fact that feels like history even where it is obviously fiction. (3) Ms. Diamont demonstrates uncanny skill in taking "silences" of the Bible (where the Biblical narrative leaves off) and interprets them in ways which are not obviously contradictory with what IS in the Bible. Her ability to pinpoint such "gaps" in the sacred text and fill them skillfully and with imagination makes her novel fascinating reading, including for those familiar with the Biblical text, for here is a realistic point of view of what the Bible might have said if it had filled in those silences. (4) Finally, and most importantly, the overwhelming strength of The Red Tent are the portraits of the women who people its pages, most especially Leah and Rachel, Bilah and Zilpah, and of course Dina. Never again will these women be mere shadowy figures evoked only by a few Biblical references to their names for a reader of The Red Tent. However, the weaknesses of The Red Tent are also real and parallel the novel's strengths. On the whole, the men in its pages are far less substantially portrayed than the women. They tend to be one dimensional cardboard cut out type characters, even Jacob and Labon, and far more so the king and prince of Shechem and male characters populating the portion of the novel taking place in Egypt, including Joseph. Similarly, the novel's blending of history and imagination breaks down when the story line reaches Shechem and Egypt, the descriptions of both of which are more suggestive of suburban living in this century than historical reality. But another weakness of The Red Tent is, I believe, also its fatal flaw. This is Ms. Diamont's failure to follow through with the courage of her own story's convictions. In her novel she creates living, breathing, strong, sensitive, intelligent, caring, flesh and blood Biblical matriarchs, and then abandons them to an age-old male chauvinist stereotype. For apparently, Elokim, the God of Abraham, is the province solely of men in the world depicted in The Red Tent. Despite the statements in Biblical narrative indicating that Abraham's wife, Sarah, Isaac's wife, Rebecca, and Leah all individually prayed to the God, Elokim, Ms. Diamont ignores these jewels of Biblical feminism. Instead her finely drawn heroines stay mired in the muck of paganism. They are more interested in their wood and stone household idols than in the fascinating concept of an all powerful and invisible God, a God who is worshiped by the very man each of the four weds, loves, lives with and bears the children of. How could this be? Is it conceivable that woman such as the characters portrayed by Ms. Diamont could possibly be satisfied worshipping sticks and stones when in their own home is a higher spiritual alternative? One could argue that these women, unlike Jacob, were raised in ignorance of Abraham's monotheistic and all powerful God in the company of idol-worshiping Laban. But is it conceivable that not one of these four articulate, intelligent, spiritual women as portrayed by Ms. Diamont would show any interest in the most earth shaking spiritual phenomenon to touch the planet - at the very moment it took place and in their own household, tents, and family? I think not. Sadly, The Red Tent appears to be so enmeshed in defending a view point -- that women of the Bible are just as rich, full, complete and complex human beings as are men in the Bible -- that it steps right into the trap of handing God in the Bible over to men, staking the claim of Biblical women instead to idol-worship. The unfortunate but incontrovertible message we receive is that men in Dina's day may have found the imminent and omniscient invisible God of Abraham and Isaac compelling, but the women did not, and would not or could not strive for this new spiritual height. This is the novel's fatal flaw. Despite all of its power and drama, its skillful blending of historical and fictional events and personages, in the end, The Red Tent serves up the same old stereotype. Biblical matriarchs - whose rightful place is that of true spiritual partners of Biblical patriarchs, are instead left diminished in our memories as spiritual dwarfs. How sad! What a tragic waste of a powerful writer and story!
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