Rating: 
Summary: Amazing!
Review: I thought this book was amazing! I have bought additional copies for friends and family. It was not only enjoyable, but moving as well. I have recommended this to everyone, especially women. It seems we are disconnected from ourselves and each other in this modern world. This book reminds us of the beauty of motherhood, nature and the circle of life. Very well done!
Rating: 
Summary: Anti-feminist, anti-woman, violent, desolate
Review: I gave up on The Red Tent, although I was supposed to read it for a book club meeting. Despite the beautiful style, I found it desolate. The womens' plight always seemed so hopeless. I tried, but could not find anything to appreciate about women depicted as property and second-class citizens, lying on soiled straw during one's period, taking a girl's viginity with a piece of wood or vague descriptions of "pleasuring" "animal noises" describing sex, and "his sex" and "her sex." Worst of all, after we suffer through two-thirds of the book with Dinah, her mate is slaughtered in the most horrible way. This book has a problem--it's trying to be an imaginative account of the Bible, and that may be a contradiction in terms. The author's style and imagination just don't cut it here.
Rating: 
Summary: Overwrought sentimentality
Review: While it was a great idea to write about a Biblical event from women's point of view, Diamant is obsessed with California-mystical sexuality. How many descriptions of oiled hair and bloody childbirth can you read?
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful story
Review: This is the first "fiction" book that I have read in a very long time. It has more than lived up to my expectations. Almost every woman in my family has read this book, and with good reason. It is a wonderful story, with touching and vivid descriptions of what it is like to be wife, mother, daughter and friend. I was sad to have the story end.
Rating: 
Summary: Setting the record straight...
Review: Two words: historical fiction!!!Anita Diamant did an absolutely beautiful job portraying the world of women during Old Testament times. Because of the patriarchal nature of that society, the Old Testament has very few details about the women, this book merely provides a possible and probable scenario. As far as any discrepancies between biblical accounts and those in the Red Tent, one need only remember that very rarely will two witnesses to the same event have identical recollections of the event. Every one has his or her own unique perspective. As to the reviewer who claimed that the biblical account describes Joseph as spoiled; read Genesis again. Joseph was his father's favorite, he was hated by his brothers because of this, not because of his attitude. Also, in Genesis, Abram's named is changed to Abraham by God when God promises that Sarah will have a child, and that Abraham's descendant's will be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Therefore, the use of the Abram name by Diamant is perfectly acceptable. There are some differences between the biblical account and the Red Tent, however, they seem to be related to the particular narrator's point of view rather than anything that will drastically shake the foundations of Judaism or Christianity. One must also remember that many so-called Christian symbols and rituals have their roots in the fertility religions of the same regions. When early Judeo-Christians married into other tribes and other religions, or came to this new religion from an old one,they brought some of the symbols and gave them slightly new meanings. Hate to break the news folks, but the evangelical Christianity of today is a far, far cry from the brand of religion that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus, Peter, and even Paul
knew.
The Red Tent: Two thumbs up!
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: Worth the Wait
Review: This book was a struggle until I reached the
second part of the story. Ms Diamant shines
from this point on. I have recommended it to several
friends despite the slow start.
Rating:
Summary: The perfect read for a new mother
Review: My husband gave me this book for Christmas after the birth of our first child, a daughter, a month before. I do not know if I would have appreciated this tale of the bonds between women and their relationships with the moon and her cycles as much had I not just given birth to a daughter.
This story, through its portrayal of women as chattal, actually gives us an understanding of the mystic strength of women and the power they possessed even in such dismal times for women's suffrage. Dinah and her "mothers" each hold a secret strength that enables them to not only survive but triumph over the daily life of their era, which by today's standard (at least in the US), is unthinkable.
I especially warmed to the stories of the Red Tent itself and the time the women spent in its shroud.
I will give this to my daughter to read when she is old enough.
Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: This book is really broken into three pieces. You'll fly through the first third, start wondering what else can possibly happen in the 2nd and then be completely amazed by the turn of events in the third. Its a must-read for women and a great book for book clubs. There's a lot to discuss. Anita Diamant is a great author and really makes you love and know her characters.
Rating:
Summary: Four Stars for Skill, One Star for Content
Review: Diamant is a writer of great skill and has woven a book both poignant and powerful, with beautifully crafted characters I could see easily as I read. As I woman, I wept at some of the loving descriptions of the beautiful mysteries shared by women of all time. But the inescapable fact, glaring throughout the book, is that it is a work of slander and defamation of historical and, to many around the world, heroic figures who are not around to defend themselves. The previous reviewer with the most apt and concise description of the book has said that it is "profoundly anti-Judeo-Christian". The foremost theme of this fiction is worship of the mother goddess, frowned upon then as now by the first of the ten commandments. Abram(never Abraham) is not the father of a great nation of promise, but a countrified oaf; Jacob a crass, insensitive tyrant; and Joseph, no longer the moral giant who perseveres through faith over rejection and crushing prejudice, is now a whiny, spoiled opportunist. The women and their numerous pagan dieties hold the only moral high ground available here.
The most telling indictment of Biblical patriarchical structure comes from Dinah's own mouth as she shrieks thunderous curses at Jacob, Joseph and all his brothers, whereupon they, of course, tremble and begin loss of health, wealth and influence right away. Her wrath seems entirely justified by the sensational slasher story preceding it, which, unfortunately, many people will take as truth. An artful wordsmith evokes our deepest gut-level response, and Ms. Diamant has done this well.
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