The Red Tent Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B000056F1O | Format: EPUB
The Red Tent Description
Her name is Dinah. In the Bible her life is only hinted at during a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons in the Book of Genesis.
Told through Dinah's eloquent voice, this sweeping novel reveals the traditions and turmoil of ancient womanhood. Dinah's tale begins with the story of her mothers: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah, the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that are to sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land.
Dinah speaks of the world of the red tent, the place where women were sequestered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and illness; of her initiation into the religious and sexual practices of her tribe; of Jacob's courtship with his four wives; of the mystery and wonder of caravans, farmers, shepherds, and slaves; of love and death in the city of Shechem; and of her half-brother Joseph's rise in Egypt.
Passionate, earthy, deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable contribution to modern fiction: a vibrant new perspective of female life in the age that shaped present day civilization and values.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 12 hours
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio
- Audible.com Release Date: November 21, 2000
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B000056F1O
I would like to take a moment to address some of the complaints made in the May 19th review. I did not experience THE RED TENT as male bashing. It's intent was to take a female view of the major women of the Old Testament and to breathe life into them. It is "over endowed" with a female viewpoint as a counterbalance to the bible's male view. Women in the BIBLE were often hardly more than property, so it is not too surprising that a fictionalized female character from this period might see men somewhat differently then we do. The BIBLE does portray Laban as a pretty disagreeable character, but in this book Jacob is portrayed as a tragic figure, not a negative figure. He is not the cause of the terrible massacre, but assumes the guilt of his tribe. Until then he is a respected male figure in the book. The women have their weak points as well. Rachel is vain, and the grandmother, Rebecca is a formidable figure of both arrogance and power. Isaac's trauma as a child, being nearly slaughtered by his own father, was treated with compassion. Diamant has Dinah speak of this trauma and how it left Isaac with a stutter for the rest of his life. Some of the women are weak in a way that makes them disagreeable. The carpenter husband of Dinah, Benia, is a truly admirable and loveable male figure and her young husband, the prince Shalem, slaughtered at the hands of her brothers, is as gentle and romantic a young man as you could want.
As to the continual reference to pregnancies and childbirth, I believe this had a deliberate intent. During biblical times, childbearing is what gave women power.
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