Anita Diamant, The Red Tent
The Red Tent is based on the Genesis, more particularly on the story of Dinah, daughter of Jacob.
Told in Dinah’s voice, the novel begins with the story of her mothers; Jacob’s wives. Jacob escapes from Canaan, after robbing his brother Esau of his firstborn’s rights. Jacob goes to his uncle Laban, who has four daughters; Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah. He falls in love with Rachel but marries Leah first, taking the other sisters as dowries for the brides.
After many sons, Dinah is finally born to Leah, but she is considered a blessing by the four women who are already surrounded by boys. In the peace of the red tent, where women reunite each month when they have their periods, spared from their daily tasks of cooking and serving, Dinah will discover the secrets of womanhood, learn how to worship the goddesses (though the men worshipped the God of Abraham, the women kept their own beliefs), and unlock the mysteries of procreation and birth. In the red tent, Dinah witnesses women giving birth, in a time when birth and death were intimately connected.
Dinah’s own womanhood is marked by a bloody tragedy that costs the life of Shalem, her beloved, and drives her to Egypt, where, after raising her own son, she will finally exercise her gift as a midwife and find love and happiness…
The Red Tent is an enthralling historical novel, violent and vibrant, a novel about birth and death, love and hatred, mothers and daughters, in a time when motherhood was the only ambition a woman could have. I understand that purists had many things to reproach to Anita Diamant’s Red Tent, but since I don’t have a great knowledge of the Old Testament, I could enjoy the story for what it is; a novel…
My advice: don’t read The Red Tent when you’re pregnant! The scenes related to giving birth are pretty intense…
Rating: 4/5
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