La tienda roja

Joseph, the guy with the Technicolor Dreamcoat is the brother of the main character in this book - his sister - Dinah (Dee-nah). The name of the book comes from the women's tent where all who are in an "unclean" status must go. Unclean can be menstruating, or fulfilling the time after the birth of a baby, and means hanging out with other ladies in this same situation, propped over bowls to catch their blood, all while talking, fighting, singing, bonding, sleeping, and surely smelling ripely in the family's (more tribe than our idea of family) Red Tent.

When this book first came out I tried to read it. A number of chapters in, after detailed descriptions of the reasons for the red tent, conversations taking place in the red tent, and then all the animals being abused on a regular basis by shepherds while the ladies were not available, I remember slamming the book shut. Every Sunday School lesson I'd ever had was offended beyond all justification. Joseph is very close to Jesus in my line-up of biblical heroes. Shepherds and angels. . .almost the same thing in my religious lexicon. So these cackling women, as womanly as one can get, bloody, horny, gossipy, laughing at Jacob and the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. . . . Well, I couldn't bear it.

I don't think I'm all that changed these many years later, but this came up again in my list - and I chose to approach it from a different direction - audiobook. By the first chaper, I was head over heels in love with Dinah in a way that print hadn't invited. Listening to the offensive conversations, I found myself chuckling. I've been there before, and it was funny for me, too, without me feeling I was disrespecting a prophet. Prophets weren't even on the topic list. Just men and women and all the weirdness there. . . .so I was in this book, to the very end.

The author took liberties with the story as told in the bible, but very, very few. And, as I've always tried to imagine what it must have been to be Dinah, this helped that fantasy. Surely there were other sisters, and women. The Red Tent filled in some of those blanks for me.

This is a long, epic story. At every turn Dinah finds a way to celebrate her womanhood (and that's not a word with which I'm comfortable!), through the profound depth of her embracing who she was, and rather than wishing she was a male, and made herself powerful through who she was, how she was, what she was and what she knew. . .by acknowledging the tribe of women throughout her life who helped get her to the very end of her days. I confess - I wept.

Dinah lived a long time ago, and she may or may not have had a life just like Anita Diamant captured in the Red Tent, but that truth Anita Diamant wrote of being a woman goes way beyond Dinah. She was writing of me and my experience as a woman with other women I have known, who have loved me, cherished me, fought over me, raised me, disillusioned and comforted me. Of women who taught me good habits, and those who taught me bad ones, of women who showed me the desirability of perfection, and the impossibility of it, those who illustrated the force of gratitude, apology, regret, sorrow and the deep wisdom of silence standing by. By assigning these all to Dinah, there is a moment in the text where you catch your breath and realize: she is me, I am her, I know this. I.know.this. It filled me, like spiritual truths do, causing a deep harmonic response up and down my spine, tearfalls breaching lashes. . .that's writing shot from a bow, hitting my heart.

That's 5 stars. Ruby.Scarlet.Crimson.Burgundy.Maroon.

This is the second book I have read recently which is based on events which occured in the bible, and it is by far the better one. The story is so alive and flowing that I have finished the book within one day and it has stood in sharp contrast to the previous book I read, which was much longer, took much more time and effort to read and was a lot heavier.
The book tells the story of Dinah. A character hardly mentioned in the bible except for a few lines (after finishing the book, I fished out the bible and checked this out, although the author says so too). Her story is a short and violent one there.
The book was fantastic and when it ended I was left literally gasping and with tears in my eyes.
Recommended.

זה הספר השני שאני קוראת החודש שמבוסס על מאורעות תנכ"יים, ואני חייבת להודות שהוא הטוב מבין השניים, הרבה יותר טוב. הספר מגולל את סיפורה של דינה - אחותם של ראובן, שמעון, לוי, אפרים, יוסף וכהנה וכהנה. יש בספר דוגמאות מאוד מעניינות לעבודת האלילים שהייתה בא"י לפני המעבר למונותיאיזם, וגם מבט מרענן על האבות הראשונים (אברהם, יצחק ויעקב). הדמויות כ"כ חיות והסיפור כה זורם שסיימתי את הספר בתוך יום. זה היה ניגוד חי ונהדר לספר הקודם, שהיה חי גם הוא, אך כבד יותר. את הספר סיימתי עם דמעות בעיניים ובשוק.
אהבתי נורא!

As I read The Red Tent, a little thing started to bug me. Almost without fail, the women were strong, smart, and moral. On the other hand, the men were virtually always weak, selfish, and kind of dumb. It struck me as rather two-dimensional.

Then I realized what author Anita Diamant was doing. She was asking, “What would the Bible be like if it were written by women?”*

I can’t be the only one who gets frustrated by the Old Testament because practically every woman in it ends up looking bad -- weak, easily tempted, a harlot, a pillar of salt...face it, women don’t fare too well in the OT. I always chalked this up to the fact that the Bible was written (or written down, however you want to look at it) by men, men that brought their own outlooks and prejudices to the text.

Diamant turns the tables on men. She tells the story of Jacob and his family from the point of view of his only daughter, Dinah. The result is that, in The Red Tent, those bad things you read about in the Bible still happen, but this time, they’re all the fault of those big, dumb men.

It was fun for awhile, but after the novelty wore off, I found myself longing for a little more complexity and maybe just a hint of the old familiar Bible stories. In particular, I missed the humility and wisdom of Joseph who, in this telling, is a selfish, despotic jerk. I think Diamant is a good writer and it was easy to immerse myself in her world. I only wish that world hadn’t been so black and white.

(Note: You may want to avoid this book if you don’t like...er...people “knowing” each other in the Biblical sense. This book is positively saturated with that sort of thing. Some of it even made me cry, “TMI!”)

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* Alternatively, Diamant could have been imagining the story of Dinah taking place in that evil parallel universe in Star Trek where the people that are normally good are all bad, but I discarded that theory because I saw no evidence of an over-abundance of goatees.


Update: (8/25/10) So I upped the review to four stars because even now, weeks after I finished the book, I am still thinking about it. Many of the characters could have used more development, but Dinah is complex, interesting, and flawed and gives a person a lot to think about. And I always have to remind myself that just because a book doesn't turn out the way I'd like it to, or just because I don't like certain characters doesn't mean it isn't a good book. Sigh.

This novel follows the tale of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob barely mentioned in the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, she is seen as a young girl who a handsome prince took advantage of, and that the following slaughter was the result of her family defending her honor.

I went into this book solely expecting a rich, entertaining story and that's what I got. I never read the story in the Bible, so I didn't have any expectations in regard to being accurate.

I learned much from this book and I could picture the vivid scenery. The way it was written was just so beautiful. Scenes that I would have otherwise found awkward were handled tenderly with grace. This family saga is a tribute to women and mothers everywhere, even those we have forgotten. I saw some reviews saying how this book treated men poorly and two-dimensionally, but I disagree. Dinah treated her male relatives with respect, and her later hatred of them was for personal reasons only- not just because they were men. The reason the men weren't as fleshed out as the women is simply because Dinah did not know them as well. She was surrounded by women, so that's what would have stuck with her.

It seems the more impressed I am with a book, the less I have to say about it. Overall a beautiful, sad story about womanhood and family that I whole-heartedly recommend.

The Red Tent is (very) loosely based on the story of Dinah in Genesis, and it is a book that is very easy to read. Dinah's tale is one that deserves fleshing out; in the Bible it is an interesting though undeveloped and uncertain chronicle. The author does a fairly decent job of developing her female characters, but her male characters are largely flat, stereotypical, and unnecessarily negative.

In the Bible, the characters of Jacob and Joseph are more well-rounded; they are humans with both faults and virtues, moments of greatness and of pettiness. In Diamant’s novel, we largely see only one side to these men--the downside. We never get any sense that they are worth caring about, that there is any emotion within in them that we, as readers, can relate to. The narrator states that Jacob was devastated by Joseph's reported death, but we have no reason to believe it, since the author has neither developed nor depicted any love or affection between them. Although Diamant seems to be developing something interesting in the nature of Judah, she quickly drops the matter.

The author unnecessarily, I believe, alters some segments of the Biblical narrative. She even suggests that the significant, divine naming of Israel (a true milestone in the Jewish story) was nothing more than Jacob's cowardly choice to change his name so as not to be associated with the slaughter in Schechem. When Rachel steals her father's household idol in the novel, Jacob seems both to know and yet not to care (at least for a long time). In the Bible, however, he thinks no one among him has taken it, and he basically says, "If anyone took it, let him die," in effect unknowingly cursing his beloved wife, who does die later in childbirth. Had Diamant not altered this point, it might have made for some wonderful pathos in the novel.

Despite being written by a Jewish author, The Red Tent is in many ways an expression of a growingly popular modern neo-paganism, which incorporates the myth of the universal, goddess/Mother, feminist ideology, and a sort of body/self worship. I don't complain that Anita Diamant made some of the characters pagan; it is clear from the Bible that many early pre Israelites were, and of course, the Israelites themselves were always sliding back to idol worship. But in The Red Tent, Jacob appears to be the only monotheist in the world (and even his monotheism is on shaky grounds). What is more, polytheism almost seems to be portrayed as a healthy, feminine alternative to the somewhat deranged patriarchal religion of Jacob's fathers (an idea that does not comport too well with the actual historical treatment of women in cultures that embrace polytheism and goddess worship).

The first time I read this book years ago my frustration stemmed from primarily the depiction of the various characters. And I mean ALOT of characters.
However, this time I decided to read it slowly so that I could focus and absorb the characters and the story.
I loved the celebration of a strong female character and heroine. I loved Dinah's quiet strength, her confidence and her self-awareness.
Anita Diamant was able to sweep me up and carry me away to another time and place.
A place where there is a "Red Tent" that I wish was here.

The Red Tent, Anita Diamant. Covers the pre-founding history, nation of Israel. Anita Diamant has written the story of Dinah, sister of Joseph, daughter of Jacob from the Bible book Genesis. I agree this story so thought provoking and profound. I'm a big softie sometimes lol. It's an incredible possible depiction of life as seen from a women's point of view. Its easily read through its entirety. But it's real purpose I believe is to create the "thing " inside yourself, be it teach, learn, have wonderment, agree to disagree, fantasize, create self reflection and discussion in depth, love lost, love found, it ticks boxes I like, has secrets, hatred, unforgivable atrocities, murder, arts and craft, laughter, animal husbandry oh mustn't forget birth apon birth and birth again and again... just wow what a lot of birth and midwifery, and finally my favorite which is always my favorite to be lost in a book completely for a brief time at least. Last but not least spend a few hours writing what I thought, it did all these things for me and that's what I loved about it. Anita has told it in a way that is modern and ancient at the same time, but leaves you with hope for endless possibilities of redemption for the present and future generations. I have passed book along to another human, maybe be moved as I was, hopefully...maybe...hmmm...nah...give my book back.... fark off....kidding....
... no I'm not.

This is the second time I am reading The Red Tent and I am happy I gave it a second read. The first time I was reading with religious goggles, this time I was able to take the book for what it is, a story told from another perspective.

I enjoyed every minute of this book, Anita Diamant is a master storyteller and it is clear when you read this book. The beginning is bit slow but it picks up and does not stop. The book is told from Dinah's perspective who is mentioned briefly in the book of Genesis. In reading the Bible I have always wondered " I wonder what became of that person..." Diamant definitely attempts to answer that question about Dinah with the writing of this book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.