Saralee Says
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (Picador) is probably the most popular selection by book clubs in the last few years. I have sold every copy of The Red Tent that has been in our bookstore and I kept saying to myself there must be a reason this book, first published in 1997, is still so popular. Now I understand why.
Diamant, the author of Living a Jewish Life, The New Jewish Wedding, Choosing a Jewish Life and Good Harbor has written a fictional account of events that take place in the Bible in the book of Genesis.
Jacob was a patriarch and the son of Isaac who was the son of Abraham. He had four wives: Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah. In Diamant's novel, these four women went to the red tent when experiencing birth, menstruation and other aspects of life unique to women. Rather than hating each other and fighting over Jacob, the author has woven a story where these women bond together and help one another. They had 12 sons with Jacob but their story is told by Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob. It is in the red tent that Dinah and her four different mothers teach her how to be a woman, how to be productive and how to survive in ancient Biblical times.
Diamant tries to make sense of what the four different women must have experienced as they lived together as wives of the same man. For example, according to the Bible, Jacob fell in love with Rachel at first sight and the Bible says that her father Laban tricked Jacob into marrying his older daughter Leah first. Like Diamant, I assumed that because Jacob loved Rachel so much he must not have cared for Leah but Diamant reminds us that he had many sons with Leah. Jacob later married Rachel and also had children with Bilhah, Rachel's servant and with Zilpah, Leah's servant. Just like in the Bible, Bilhah and Zilpah are not considered to have the same social status as Rachel and Leah.
After you read The Red Tent did you do as I did and re-read Genesis starting with chapter 28 through chapter 50? What did you think about the events that happened with Dinah and the Canaanites? Were Dinah's brothers justified in their actions? Why do you think this book is so popular? What other books have you read that use women to interpret events that happened in the Bible? Also, did The Red Tent change your mind about the practice of having more than one spouse at the same time?
Larry's Language
The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is a perfect reminder for many men that we really do not understand the psychology, thinking, feelings and worldview of many women. Also, author Diamant reminds us that women are much tougher than men. The stories told by the women as they gather in the red tent would make many of us men uneasy, anxious and squeamish, but the four wives and their daughter Dinah are accepting and calm.
This is a fictional account of how Jacob, one of the founding Jewish fathers according to the Old Testament, built his family, protected his tribe and traveled from Mesopotamia to Canaan and ancient Israel to Egypt. While this is an interesting travelogue in terms of foods, cultures, scenery and people, the real story is a midrash, or expanded account, of the story about Jacob marrying first Leah as a result of trickery, then marrying his true love, her sister Rachel, then marrying or at least having lots of sex with both Leah and Rachel's servants. There were no divorces, all these pairings happened at the same time. Not much need for a lawyer therefore, since instead of dissolving the marriage you could just move to the next tent. Problem was when you moved to the next territory, all of your tents came with you.
There are great questions for any book club discussion in this novel. What modern philosophical implications are there for religious groups that oppose or support plural marriages? What implications are there for those folks today who oppose gay and lesbian marriage on the grounds that it may lead to legalization of plural marriages?
The Red Tent also shows the stunning cruelty, barbarity and vulgarity of Jacob's family, but that was the way life was lived. The sharpest illustration was when Shechem, who loved Dinah, was tricked by Jacob's family into persuading all the men of his city to be circumcised. What happened next rivals any modern movie for blood and gore. While Jacob and his family believed they acted justly, Dinah reacted by creating her own life and becoming her own woman.
Next time join us for All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren.
