Stack of Spines

Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent is the story of Jacob’s daughter Dinah, based on the book of Genesis, and told from her perspective.

At first I was puzzled by the begatting and seeming lack of plot, but the more the story went on the more I was intrigued.  The pace was a bit sluggish, but I suppose so was life in those days.

Reading reminded me of an anthropological discussion in college – most ‘feminists’ argued that the Red Tent where women spent three days monthly was discriminatory and degrading whereas some women at the time relished that time to themselves where nothing was required of them.  It is perhaps a subject for the Freakonomics authors to ponder at their next go-round.

Intrigued by Diamant’s version I re-read the story from Genesis to understand which creative liberties she took.  All were done well to increase the intrigue and character of Dinah.  Some books only outline pieces of someone’s life, and occasionally you find one that discusses birth to death and all of the family mishaps in between.  The ending was definitely the best part of the book and tied more than a few of the plot lines together incredibly well.