The Red Tent: A Novel

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Editorial reviews

Product Description

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Amazon.com Review
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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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-11-11 rating:
Literary Bread and Water- Will Make You Feel Alive
This book is the best book I've read in a long time. It is literary bread and water: fleshy with life, sustaining and fulfilling, yet clean and unadorned and quenching. It is the story of the life of Woman, told through the life of one woman. At times we see through the eyes of a girl-child, observing so many new details with a slow hand, and this first part of the book is luxurious and comfortable. Then you are suddenly a woman speeding through painful, empty years, and then finally savoring the last slow memories of the sweet years before death. Dinah, the woman, is a character mentioned in the Bible, though in that text her story is short and black and white. This telling is anything but. A multitude of characters with unfamiliar names is handled with grace and genius, even after asking myself "Why can I tell all of these strange people apart and remember exactly who they are even after they haven't been mentioned for whole chapters? It is an untraceable brilliance--I felt like I knew and could see four mothers, twelve brothers, countless acquaintances, two lovers, children, and every supernumerary character with only one line of description concerning them dropped here or there. Nothing that I have read has captured the entire human experience in such touching and vivid terms as The Red Tent. It is definitely one of those books that you can't finish in public- you have to save those last five pages for your empty bedroom and a box of tissues, for nothing has ever made me feel so alive.

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review by: date: 2008-11-10 rating:
A must read.
Even as a Christian and considering the liberty she takes with biblical characters, I believe this is a book to be read by all women. So beautiful.

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review by: date: 2008-11-06 rating:
The Red Tent
The Red Tent is one of the best books I have ever read! It was plausible, and it taught me a lot about the women of this period. I think every woman should read it. I enjoyed it so much, I bought my step-daughter a copy so she could read it. Everyone I know who has read the book has loved it! Anita Diamant shows an incredible talent for story telling in this book. I look forward to reading more of her books.

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review by: bookish date: 2008-11-04 rating:
wonderfully engrossing
I would reread this book without hesitation!

the descriptions so vivid...

the story telling is supreme. the author really uses the english language to her advantage.

One can sympathize with the main character Dinah. Sometimes I wish women still had a red tent to congregate in... sigh


review by: date: 2008-11-03 rating:
Pagan women in an early Jewish world
Anita Diamant, The Red Tent
This book tells a fictionalized story of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob. It's a story of the women of ancient Hebrew society, with emphasis on the wives of Jacob. Though Dinah makes only a cameo appearance in the Hebrew bible, Diamant manages to milk quite a novel out of very little raw material.

As a guy, I am definitely not in the target audience for this book, which is undoubtedly marketed as "chick lit." (The Amazon reviewers, I note, are overwhelmingly women.) So let me speak to the guys out there: this is a really good book. Diamant focuses on the sisterhood of the red tent, where women retreat during menses and childbirth, but she manages to give us a convincing reconstruction of the ancient Hebrew world. The characters are real, and the setting feels right.

The most striking aspect of this book has less to do with the book than with the author. Diamant is a convert to Judaism who has written several books on the practices of contemporary Judaism. However, this book is remarkably pagan. She emphasizes the pagan practices of the women, which she juxtaposes to the Jewish (or Yahwist) practices of the men. This feminist narrative sides with the women, of course, which means that the author's voice sympathizes with the pagans. Seeing this perspective into the world of early Judaism makes this book distinctive.

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