The Red Tent

Rating:
Summary: Very unique and captivating
Review: I loved this book for all the same reasons everyone else did, but I must add that it was very refreshing to read a book with such a unique format. The format of most stories and novels goes: 1. introduction 2. rising action 3. climax 4. falling action 5. resolution

However, "The Red Tent" has no rising action, so the climax hits you like a ton of bricks making for a very unpredictable story. Then, the story continues to rise and fall in very atypical undulations. I love this completely unpredictable format.

One last remark I must make is that I appreciate how Diamant makes no bones about this book being "based on" or having a direct correlation to the stories in the bible. On the very first page of the book she cautions the reader that the stories and names in "The Red Tent" may be similar to those of the Bible, but she is in no way implying that they are true or should be believed.

Rating:
Summary: Vividly Fresh Life for a tired, old, and mundane story!
Review: If you are one of those people who tries to take the Old Testament literally, you won't want to read this book. But if you seek to find more meaning, more human qualities to this religious classic, this is definitely the novel for you!

Throughout the Bible, women are rarely mentioned (except for being the mother of this or that male character). For most women, the question arises -- what really happended in the lives of these biblical women? And I think for people everywhere -- were the lives of these people really so colorless?

The Red Tent explores the lives of the wives and daughters of the Bible's Jacob. Told from the vantage point of Jacob's only daughter, Dinah (pronounced Dee-nah), this book brings the last half of the book of Genesis to life.

During the first half of this novel, the author draws you into the intimate details of the lives of 5 women - Dinah, and her four mothers. (As was common in the time, Jacob has 4 wives - all the daughters of his uncle, Laban.) The women struggle through the full range of emotions for one another, from love to jealousy, and back to loyalty once more.

Mid-book, the tone of the book completely changes as the events of the story tear these women's lives apart. As Dinah suffers and becomes distant to the world, so the author makes you distant to the characters. This makes the last half of the book less enjoyable than the first, but without it, the reader would never find closure and would always be asking - but what about Joseph and is Dinah ever reconciled with her family?

After reading this story, my curiousity was piqued and I felt the need to refresh my memory of the Biblical version. It is interesting to note how the author took the basic details and expounded into an amazing narrative of what might have happened. The next time I pick up my NIV, I will strain to see new meaning between the lines of these age old stories. (I am also curious to know how Ms. Diamont got her ideas for this story -- this is never revealed in the book!!)

Rating:
Summary: A slap in the face ...
Review: It took me forever to get through this book. Why? I hated it. If it weren't on my reading group list I wouldn't even have finnished it. It wasn't the writting style or the topic (I love biblical historical fiction/nonfiction). I hated how Anita Diamant took the lives of these characters and portrayed them as complete hethens. She took a basic story found in the bible and exploited it, changing biblical fact to get her own agenda across and in the process making this book a slap in the face to every christian and jew that reads it. How sad. Don't waste your money on this book!

Rating:
Summary: Fufilling Read for Women
Review: Our book club read "The Red Tent" and thoroughly enjoyed it. We are made up of Christian women, and while "El" the God of Jacob doesn't act as a character in the book, we found the Jewish and pagan perspectives insightful. Most of us hadn't thought about the harsh life women during Dinah's time would have endured and were especially pleased with the fortifying relationships the women had with one another. I liked the romance between Jacob and his wives and relished the birthing stories. Dinah's encouraging relationship with four mothers inspired me to be more positive with my own daughter. Diamant definitely brings the passions of Dinah to life in a way that the Bible totally leaves out. We found the ending satisfying as well. I've recommended it as a very good read to my friends. Don't expect the typical Biblical characterizations here - Diamant reads deep into the character's circumstances and creates motivations and dialog based on them. A worthwhile read and purchase!

Rating:
Summary: poor quality novel...
Review: The author gives the pretense that she is weaving together a tale based upon the little we know of these Biblical women...yet in reality Anita Diamant attempts to rip to shreds any of the facts we do know about these characters. For this reason I find it hard to appreciate much of anything about this book! It would seem the author had an almost malicious pleasure in twisting accounts, for example: the account of Dinah being made a victim through violation by Shechem has been changed by the author into Dinah, instead, falling in love and having consensual sex and being made a victim by her brothers instead! (As they killed Shechem and the men of the land.) Furthermore in the Biblical account Jacob rebukes Simeon and Levi for their actions whereas in this story the author makes him party to their deeds. Not only this but she then writes that afterward Jacob changed his name to Israel to protect himself from being made known as a murderer...which basically spits on the account as Jews and Christians know it.

Regardless of what you think about Judaism/Christianity (having seen the tantrums thrown by some reviewers that anyone who has issues with this book is a Bible thumping, narrow minded Christian, and so forth...) I think it should be clear why there are people who do have a problem with this book just based on literary quality. After all, I think most anyone would find it hard to respect an author maligning, twisting and inventing things about *any* person(s) that you know and believe otherwise about.

One more note: the overabundance of descriptions on bodily functions and sexual acts gets old very quickly! The author appears to have a rather adolescent obsession with all things sexual, in my opinion.

Rating:
Summary: So Close and Yet So Far...
Review: The deep flowing themes of a woman's life are so poignantly captured in this book that it will stir any mother or woman's soul. The agonies and joys, the intense pain and deep-rooted ecstasy experienced by these women transcends ages and speaks to their sisters today.

Yet upon closing this book I found myself disappointed. Diamant pumped life and passion into these women of Genesis but failed to make the story a believable interpretation of the biblical account. The bible, written by women, would still have been God-inspired; it wouldn't have been "The True Story of Jacob, Laban, Joseph..." And while even the biblical portrayal of these men does not make them out to be super-human saints, Diamant depicts them as barbaric tyrants who follow the lead of an almost misogynistic god. Her heroines worship instead a mother goddess who is in tune with the lives and cycles of women.

In taking liberties with scripture to write this fictional account of Dinah, Diamant writes beautifully about the inner lives of the women in the red tent, but regrettably fails to capture the aspect of their God, who understands perfectly the intimate enigma of woman.

Poignant, stirring, but far from uplifting and sadly unsound in its most baisic structure, "The Red Tent" is nearly there but very far.

Rating:
Summary: A Compelling, Thought-provoking Read
Review: There was some mention of feminism and the depiction of the male characters as fools. That was true, where many were concerned, including the female characters. To me, that made them real.

I have to admit that I have read very little of the Bible, and probably wouldn't have read this book had a friend not recommended it to me. I'm glad that I did. Although the book started out rather slow, Diamont drew me in with the characters of Leah and Rachel, who fell in love with a man named Jacob. She did an excellent job of describing the sibling rivalry between the two women, the clash between father and son-in-law, and the horrifying event that rips the family apart.
The Red Tent is a tightly interwoven novel of female bonding, lust and jealousy, and family legacies. You don't have to have a strong knowledge of the Bible to enjoy this book. The fact that Diamont took a very brief glimpse of history and blew it up into a believable story shows how creative she is. I'd recommend this book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Jacob's clan from the female viewpoint
Review: This excellent historical novel was recently donated to our church library, and as librarian, I read it. This novel tells the story of Jacob's clan in the Old Testament or Torah, from the viewpoint of Dinah, his daughter. The story tells about what women's lives were like then, and their work in the clan, from food gathering, preparation and storage, weaving and spinning, time spent in the red tent to coincide with the lunar calendar, girls' coming of age, and child birth experiences, along with the training and practice of ancient midwifery.

the Bible gives the bare bones of this story, and the novel extends it. It contrasts the life of the nomads like Jacob's clan with the lush life of the Egyptians by the Nile, to life in the Valley of the Kings amongst the craftspeople who worked on the pharaohs' tombs. I recommend this book especially for women, who want to know what life might have been like for women during the Old Testament in the pre-Judaism period. The wording and vernacular make you feel you are truly back in that time. Women of all faiths will enjoy this book, and so would men. However, the book is strictly from a female point of view to the point that the male characters are rather mysterious, sometimes loving, but sometimes chauvinistic and uncaring about the women's feelings; they order the women about, one woman in paticular is regularly beaten and abused, and women are seen strictly as servants of the men. Within this life style, some of the women have power within the tribe, especially in ruling the lesser women like the servants and concubines, and in female matters. I found it very interesting and certainly widened my view of what life was like for women back then.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous
Review: This is an amazing novel, that anyone with an open mind would enjoy. I couldn't put it down.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: This is the first 5-star review I've ever given on Amazon. Diamant's prose is powerful and mesmerizing, hooking the reader from the very first page. Dinah takes us to a place we care about, filled with people we care about (either good or bad), and recreates such vivid sensory input that it's a disappointment to put the book down and go back to the everyday world.

Diamant takes just the right number of risks, re-casting the familiar story and characters in such a way as to make you go "Aha!" but without veering off into the realm of wildly goofy or too modern. The second act isn't as good as the first, and the climax is more of an anticlimax, but it's more than worth the read. This is the standard that most modern Biblical fiction aspires to (the one that re-started the trend), and few measure up. As fiction, it's a highly readable, believable, entertaining, heartbreaking work.