A compelling new perspective on an old Biblical tale (The Red Tent - Anita Diamant)

Member Name: Leolover

Product:	The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
Date:	17/07/02 (95 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: easy to read, fascinating , moving

Disadvantages: gruesome in places

Every so often you read a book that takes you out of yourself to such an extent that you literally lose all sense of your surroundings. You can be sitting on a bus, or sunbathing by a crowded hotel pool, with tears running down your face, occasionally punching your fist in the air in triumph for characters that have completely stolen your soul. This is how 'The Red Tent' affected me. I was moved, staggered and overwhelmed by the strength of the world Anita Diamant introduced me to, the world of the Old Testament, the familiar characters of Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, and the women. Oh yes, the women. Sidelined and silenced up to this point, they have finally been given a voice. And what a voice!

Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, is the central character of this novel, and through her we learn the stories of all the women that make up Jacob's family, who share a closeness that none of the men are aware of and would be horrified to learn. In the first half of the book we hear the women?s stories through Dinah's compelling narrative. The women share everything, there are no secrets between them. We learn the intimate details of Jacobs' relationship with his five wives, who are all sisters. We hear tales of childbirth, death, pain and joy. The women share their stories in the 'red tent' where every menstruating woman must spend three days of the month away from the men, a welcome break which they look forward to wholeheartedly.

In the Bible, Dinah is mentioned briefly and made out to be a victim, raped by an Egyptian prince, and avenged by her brothers, who slaughter the prince, his family, and every male member of his city. Diamant paints a different story. She imagines an alternative possibility, that Dinah fell in love and that the men in her family were too angered by her attempt to make her own choices to allow the match. In her imagined version of the age old tale, Dinah's Prince loves her en
ough to agree to the brutal terms of her fathers acceptance of their marriage, and undergoes a painful circumsion along with the rest of the men in his command, only for them all to be slaughtered in the middle of the night. Diamant imagines Dinah?s grief and rage and the terrifying picture of her returning to her family to curse her father, her brothers, and every single male member of the family. Of course, in those days the men wrote the history, so their version of the story is the one that became written down and remembered, whilst Dinah's true fate was remembered only in legends passed from mothers to daughters, sisters and aunts.

The second half of the book follows Dinah as she struggles to rebuild her life after the shattering tragedy she has experienced. Pregnant with her dead lovers baby, and out of her mind with grief and horror, she travels to a distant land, births a child who destined to become a royal prince, and chooses a simple life using her skills as a midwife to assist women in birth. But Dinah is fated to meet some of her family again, and the book slowly builds to a powerful climax as she finds even more strength to deal with what life has to throw at her.

This book made me feel proud to be female. Dinah's strength and passion, although they may exist only in the mind of the author, shout out across the centuries and make you wonder about the other hidden stories, the stories of all the women who were not allowed to tell their tales. The history and literature of the past was written by men and half the stories are left untold, or manipulated to resemble nothing like the truth.

Diamants style of writing is fluid and beautiful. She intersperses images of the harsh desert environment with the contrasting beauty and gentle power of the women, and the rhythms of their lives. The pain and terror of childbirth, its association with death, along with the joy of a successful birth, are brought to life, and the
births that she describes could not be more removed from modern childbirth, which has become mechanical and demystified in this clinical, scientific age.

Lovers of the Old Testamant will find much to enjoy in this book. It's a chance to consider some of the old stories from a different, fresh perspective. But I believe this book will appeal mainly to women readers who cannot fail to empathise with Dinah?s struggles and achievements, and the bravery of all the women in this novel. It is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

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