Rating: 
Summary: Where is God's providence?
Review: I enjoyed for the most part this work of historical fiction as it was well written and revealed some interesting insights of the biblical story taken from the last half of Genesis. The account of Dinah takes only one chapter almost as a footnote and what happens to her after her unhappy incident that we can only imagine, which is what Anita Diament does most creatively.
What I found disappointing was the book taking leave of the theme of the original story and adding themes that are not there. For instance in Genesis Joseph starts as a spoiled child and becomes a man of great moral character who forgives his brothers but the book makes him to be a nice child but becomes a bitter calloused old man who can barely tolerate his family anymore. Also the original account has Joseph resisting the advances of Potifar's wife and being falsely accused and imprisoned though the book would have us believe that Joseph was jailed because he did have an affair with her. Underlying the original account and conspicuously absent from the book is the providence of God in directing the lives of Jacob and his children. The theme of this family (and ultimately a nation) being led by God through numerous hardships but finally being saved from certain starvation is the most interesting one. As Joseph tells his brothers in Egypt near the end of Genesis referring to them selling him into slavery, "You ment it for evil but God ment it for good."
Rating: 
Summary: WRONG WRONG WRONG
Review: I couldn't even finish this novel because of the incredible inaccuracies to the true Biblical account. I enjoy novels which use actual biblical stories as a backdrop and expand on actual accounts and characters, suggesting what "could have happened," as long as they keep the facts straight, but the author of this novel changed so many of the facts that I could not enjoy the novel and finally got rid of it. The Biblical truth is so much more interesting that what she came up with anyway. I read the book because a friend of mine who does not know the Bible asked me to read it and tell her if it was true, because she assumed the author wouldn't have changed the actual story thus she believed everything the author wrote. After reading as much as I could endure, I told my friend the true story and pointed her to the actual account in the Bible, but I'm afraid she will always get the story wrong now that she has The Red Tent stuck in her head. The author had a chance, but she blew it!
Rating: 
Summary: Stunning Biblical Masterpiece
Review: The Red Tent took my breath away. Its absorbing narration, provided by the character of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah, is timelessly poignant. The story is original and entrancing, but it's the women who make the lasting impression. The strength, soul, and wisdom of the female characters made me feel like I was included in a secret society -- the society of women, a world which men have never been able to understand and have therefore written off many times. I strongly recommend this novel to anyone, and I count it among my favorites.
Rating: 
Summary: In Celebration of Women
Review: How many people have read the Old Testament and wondered what all those characters were really like? What do we really know of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not to mention the women who were their wives and daughters, slaves and concubines? The Red Tent tells the story of those first Old Testament women, of Leah and Rachael, Zilpah and Bilhah, and of Dinah, the narrator, the only daughter of all four sisters, all four the wives of Jacob. We touch on the story of Jacob and Esau with Jacob stealing Esau's birthright from their father Isaac, and the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers and who subsequently became a famous ruler in Egypt. Those are the stuff of infinite Sunday School lessons that children have learned for centuries.
But who has told the story of the Bible's women? Not many until Anita Diamant gave us The Red Tent. This is the story of Biblical women's lives and hardships, joys and sorrows, humiliations and triumphs that is not told in theBible. Set apart from male society almost exclusively except for serving and sex, these brave women spent themselves in lives of hard work, spinning, weaving, grinding grain and making bread, tending gardens and cooking meals that they ate only after the men were served and finished.
The red tent is the literal and symbolic icon of female society where the women went once a month for three days as the moon goddess visited them; where they were allowed to rest, tell stories, sing and make offerings to their gods of fertility and harvest, of the moon, stars and universe. The ancient beliefs, traditions and superstitions lived on in the stories that were told each month from mother to daughter in the red tent.
This is also a story of early midwives who aided births and kept women and babies alive with their skills and feminine empathy. The plot takes us into the land of Canaan with Jacob's family and ultimately to Egypt where Joseph and Dinah reunite after many years. The heinous deeds perpetrated by the sons of Jacob live in infamy throughout all time, but their victims eventually find redemption and peace.
The Red Tent has passages that bring tears of recognition to women of all ages; women share the procreative spark that is theirs alone and which hence, endows them with power and unity that no man can ever be privy to. What a wonderful book to celebrate the joy and sorrow of being a woman, not to mention the ultimate priviledge!
Rating:
Summary: Don't let the first half turn you away from this book
Review: For the first half of this book, I had a very difficult time keeping all the characters straight. The book moved slowly, I didn't understand who was narrating at first, and I was frequently turning back to refer to the family tree printed in the beginning. Fortunately, I continued reading. Once I got to about page 200, I could not put the book down. I would read other fiction by this author.
Rating:
Summary: Trivializing
Review: This book was highly recommended to me by friends I respect and given to me as a holiday gift by a priest. I was very disappointed. I think it is a cheapening of the human experience by focusing on the physical and reducing women to primarily "cow-like" experiences and men to "ram-like" behavior. In other words, I prefer my historical novels with more dimensions than bodily functions. I read it all with near-disgust at the lack of spirituality in a historically spiritual era and because of the reduction of women to a merely animal level. I found it a disappointing, one-dimensional book.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Concept
Review: Ms. Diamant's novel, "The Red Tent," is such a wonderful concept - biblical characters seen from a woman's point of view. Wonderful read!
Rating:
Summary: Did I miss something???
Review: I am amazed when searching through the recommended reads and find this book constantly on the lists. Our book club tried reading it and none of us could even get through it much less find anything worthwile to recommend it. Maybe because I didn't finish it there was something in the end that would have brought it all together for me??? It just didn't hold my interest to get more than half way through and believe me, I tried. THUMBS DOWN to this one!!
Rating:
Summary: What A Nice Surprise!
Review: I read about this book on a review board and decided to pick it up. I am very happy that I did. Being raised in a "bible thumping,cultist atmosphere" I had heard all of these Old Testament stories before. I was so pleasantly surprised to read a fictional story like Diamant's told from a female perspective as opposed to the male dominated fiction of the Bible. The strength that the women in the Red Tent gathered from each other and the bonding that took place was truly inspiring. It's also nice to read about some of the other religions/beliefs that were celebrated during this time in history that were not all Jewish/Christian. Whether religious zealots believe it or not, the worship of the goddess was in full swing in parallel with Judaism and worshipping different deities also was commonplace. This book gives us a window into how things might have been during this time in history and does a beautiful job of leaving out all of the "Jacobs Ladder and wrestling with an angel" mumbo jumbo. I do not agree with a reviewers comment intimating that Diamant had studied/stolen the ideas of midwifery from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Any person who studies women's "place/role" in history knows that a midwife played a very intricate part in society and that childbirth has always been a major factor in the bonding of women. I doubt that Diamant had to get this information from "Midwives Tale". She could have gotten it in any social history book that concentrated on Women in Society. Kudos to Diamant for having the guts to tell a "bible" story in a different light. My only hope is that she might tell us about Bathsheba, Delilah or Esther next. What about Deborah? I will be looking forward to it!
Rating:
Summary: nice beginning, but
Review: the story line drifts off toward the end. While the first half of the book entertains with details of the main characters surroundings, especially the women's lifes, the second half of the book disappoints. Once the "rape" occurs, the author limits herself to broadly developing the main character (if that), rather than giving us more information on other characters. This book is a nice, quick read, but not very consistent.
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