A Review of Anita Diamant’s “The Red Tent”
A Book About Motherhood for Mother’s Day
It seems appropriate that I concluded my reading of Jewish author Anita Diament’s The Red Tent on Mother’s Day and that this is the day where I sit down to write this review. This retelling of a Bible story from Genesis is concerned with the notion of childbirth and motherhood, and what makes a mother a mother. It is the story of Dinah, a woman from the Old Testament that gets scant mention and is considered to be in Biblical context little more than a rape victim. The truth in Diament’s handling of the story — which is not Biblically or historically “accurate” — is a little more complicated than that, turning Dinah into something more human in the process.
The Red Tent is something of a woman’s book, and has influenced imitators since first being published in 1997, so you may be wondering why I’d be interested in it — even seeing as though I’m sort of a progressive Christian (but a reluctant non-feminist, because men get a bad rap under a lot of “feminism”). It got recommended to me by a friend from Church who has just finished studies to be a minister, and when I asked my Facebook friends for good Christian books to read — tired of the litany of so-called Christian books to review that aren’t really all that Christian at all — this book came up as a recommendation from said friend. I’m glad to have read it for insight into woman’s lives, and for even its unabashedly feminist approach to this Bible story — one that doesn’t paint all men as bastards and rapists and is quite palpable for my leanings.
This is Dinah’s story, but we get the whole backstory of her parents and how she came to be raised, along with the Biblical incident that merits her mention and its aftermath. If there’s anything poor about this book, it’s that it feels like three books stuffed into one. While the book feels long enough, the shifts in tone are evident and are a little bracing from time to time. However, despite its inaccuracies or, perhaps, its liberties with history and the Bible, there is one thing that this book unquestionable is — wickedly entertaining. While most of the sex takes place off the printed page, you get pages and pages of midwifery tricks to coax difficult babies out of wombs, childbirth detailed in all of its excruciating detail, and more menstrual blood that you can fill a vessel with. This book does for childbirth in the Bible what Game of Thrones does for sex in fantasy novels.
One thing that I thought The Red Tent would be more of was literary fiction. Instead, this is more historical fiction in the tradition of a Ken Follett than anything else. If you’re looking for sentences that dazzle with their smug cleverness, look elsewhere. This is a pretty layman’s book, and one that’s pretty accessible. You will have to refer to the genealogy charts at the beginning of the read, and having some handle on history as presented in the Bible is ideal (though not required as this book is pretty self-contained), but once you get used to it, The Red Tent teaches you how to read it as it goes along, which is the sign of a masterwork. You will also be moved by this work of fiction — there will not be a dry eye in the house at the end of the telling of this tale. To that end, Diamant is a masterful writer.
On the feminist angle, the title of the book refers to the type of tent that women of the time-period would enter upon giving childbirth or before having their period to be kept separate from the men. However, there appears to be no evidence of such tents being used in the Biblical tradition. Still, these inaccuracies are almost a necessity to tell a riveting tale, so you can easily look past them. As well, much of the story is an invention of the author’s considering how little she had to go on in terms of a history of the character she was writing about. What this book does well, though, is to give women a voice in the marginalized works of the Bible. Though many theologians will go to great lengths to show the women in the New Testament having power and service in the ministry of Jesus, I’m not sure how often the same has been done for the women of the Old Testament or for Jewish women. To that end, The Red Tent is a welcome addition to the canon of works that aim to give women more of a voice and power in a Biblical perspective — even though this book was first published more than 20 years ago (and has since been made into a TV movie).
All in all, I enjoyed this work precisely because it puts forth a view of feminism that I can agree with and one that does not require me to cut my member off to be considered a good man. (Though I have to sheepishly admit, circumcision plays a big part in the book’s plot.) I also thought the book was unique in that the God of the Hebrew Bible is only present on the sidelines, while all sorts of birthing gods and totems are routinely used by the main female characters. In a sense, The Red Tent is a work of its own — not being a counterpoint or a conjunction of the Bible, but a novel that stands on two feet without the need for any support. It is highly enjoyable — it gets better as it goes along, I found — and is a creative work that is pleasurable to read. Given the topicality of its subject matter, I couldn’t think of a better book to close off Mother’s Day. In the end, The Red Tent is a compulsively readable book, one that remains as relevant as ever, and deserves a place on your bookshelf alongside (but as not a replacement for) the Bible.
Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent was first published in 1997.
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Get in touch: zacharyhoule@rogers.com
