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4.12 AVERAGE
4.12 AVERAGE
What a wonderful book, full of life,suffering,faith,love,hardship and the continuing friendship of women. One of my all time favorite books to read, re-read and give to friends.
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I couldn't put this book down! It was incredible. From the beginning until the end it held my attention. I would recommend this book to anyone! I would read it again and again!
I have never read anything quite like The Red Tent before. A retelling of the bible story following Jacob and his wives and Joseph and his brothers. It is dramatic and sad, but also helps you imagine what life was like then.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
I've come to realize that I love retellings of Bible stories. Novels that flesh out the people and give them depth. Perhaps in the same way that I like historical fiction. An added bonus is that The Red Tent covers the generation just after the three "Women of Genesis" books that Orson Scott card wrote, making it seem almost like a fourth book. Although Diamant's interpretation of Rachel and Leah is very different.
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I love biblical fiction but this author took too many liberties and did not stay accurate to the Bible.
I was recommended this book when I put out a call for books written by women on facebook in 2019. I couldn't find a single copy in all of Australia! The charitable reading of this is that those who bought it wouldn't give it away.
The Red Tent is a re-telling of the paragraph set aside in Genisis of Jacob's only daughter Dinah. In it she is raped by a man of a nearby city who then wants to marry her, so her father and brothers insist that all the men of the town are circumcised (which they comply with), then steal in at night, murder every man in town, and enslave everyone else. It's brutal.
Before we get to any of that though (in this telling), we have Dinah's childhood. This is the real meat of the book. She has four mothers: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah, each one distinct and different and married to Jacob. They live a pastoral life centred around cooking and domesticity, but are proud and strong and loyal to their values. Each month they sequester themselves in the Red Tent for the first few days of their menstruation (which presumably have synced up). It is devoted woman time, where they can relax among their own, talk, tell stories, and honour their traditions. Dinah is the only daughter among ten sons (eventually twelve, and who will form the twelve tribes of Israel), and is privy to an untold world of female life that is set apart from the lives of men. As she grows and herself begins to menstruate, she is inducted into womanhood by her mothers in a ritual that is simultaneously barbaric and beautiful, as well as intense and memorable for the reader. Her life in around the tents of her mothers makes up a large part of the book, and its insight makes it the most enjoyable section.
Eventually her family relocates to Canaan, Jacob's home, which is where the trouble starts. The biblical events go down, except here she more-than-willingly falls into the arms and bed of her lover. It is her brothers that twist their great love into something perverse. After the slaughter she moves to Egypt, completely traumatised as you can well believe. Here the book slows down to a bit of a plod, although it has a few more emotional punches up its sleeve before the end.
Overall the book was front-loaded in terms of quality and enjoyment. It can't be stressed enough however how engaging and insightful it was to peer into a world two complete twists away from that of my own - that of women, and of ancient pastoral life. The hardship and rigor and beauty of their lives really shone from the pages and had me engrossed.
I gave a laugh when I had another look at the book's back jacket and saw how hard the marketing leaned into selling this specifically to women. Quotes were from She, Elle and Eve magazines, and included the line "Find out why 1.5 million woman have loved this book". Then I realised how sad it was how confident the booksellers were that a book like this just wouldn't appeal to men at all. In my case they were dead wrong, and I hope that this wonderful human experience will be read by men and woman for a long time.
The Red Tent is a re-telling of the paragraph set aside in Genisis of Jacob's only daughter Dinah. In it she is raped by a man of a nearby city who then wants to marry her, so her father and brothers insist that all the men of the town are circumcised (which they comply with), then steal in at night, murder every man in town, and enslave everyone else. It's brutal.
Before we get to any of that though (in this telling), we have Dinah's childhood. This is the real meat of the book. She has four mothers: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah, each one distinct and different and married to Jacob. They live a pastoral life centred around cooking and domesticity, but are proud and strong and loyal to their values. Each month they sequester themselves in the Red Tent for the first few days of their menstruation (which presumably have synced up). It is devoted woman time, where they can relax among their own, talk, tell stories, and honour their traditions. Dinah is the only daughter among ten sons (eventually twelve, and who will form the twelve tribes of Israel), and is privy to an untold world of female life that is set apart from the lives of men. As she grows and herself begins to menstruate, she is inducted into womanhood by her mothers in a ritual that is simultaneously barbaric and beautiful, as well as intense and memorable for the reader. Her life in around the tents of her mothers makes up a large part of the book, and its insight makes it the most enjoyable section.
Eventually her family relocates to Canaan, Jacob's home, which is where the trouble starts. The biblical events go down, except here she more-than-willingly falls into the arms and bed of her lover. It is her brothers that twist their great love into something perverse. After the slaughter she moves to Egypt, completely traumatised as you can well believe. Here the book slows down to a bit of a plod, although it has a few more emotional punches up its sleeve before the end.
Overall the book was front-loaded in terms of quality and enjoyment. It can't be stressed enough however how engaging and insightful it was to peer into a world two complete twists away from that of my own - that of women, and of ancient pastoral life. The hardship and rigor and beauty of their lives really shone from the pages and had me engrossed.
I gave a laugh when I had another look at the book's back jacket and saw how hard the marketing leaned into selling this specifically to women. Quotes were from She, Elle and Eve magazines, and included the line "Find out why 1.5 million woman have loved this book". Then I realised how sad it was how confident the booksellers were that a book like this just wouldn't appeal to men at all. In my case they were dead wrong, and I hope that this wonderful human experience will be read by men and woman for a long time.