July 19, 2011 at 11:13 AM In the surprising best-selling book, "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant, it appears that "no" may very well mean, "yes." Told in Dinah's voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood--the world of the red tent. Her name is Dinah. I read it when I was pregnant with my first child...so my memory was of the women in "the red tent." It seems appropriate that I concluded my reading of Jewish author Anita Diament’s The Red Tent on Mo t her’s Day and that this is the day where I sit down to write this review. Dinah, the narrator, opens The Red Tent by introducing herself and explaining that she is reciting the memories of her life and her mothers’ lives—because without a daughter to tell the story, a woman’s history does not live on.Dinah focuses initially on the stories of her mothers, the four wives of Jacob—Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah—and how they come to be married to the same man. The talented Bennett fuels her fiction with secrets—first in her lauded debut, The Mothers (2016), and now in the assured and magnetic story of the Vignes sisters, light-skinned women parked on opposite sides of the color line. St. Martin's Press (Kindle edition sold by MacMillan CA) April 2010 ISBN: 0312169787 Historical fiction The plot Diamant re imagines the story of Dinah, a character who is briefly mentioned in the Bible as having a tragic fate in the book of Genesis. Inseparable identical twin sisters ditch home together, and then one decides to vanish. According to the biblical account, Dinah was raped by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite. In Chapter 34 of the Book of Genesis, Dinah’s tale is a short, horrific detour in the familiar narrative of Jacob and Joseph. In THE RED TENT, we see Dinah grow from childhood to old age. Certainly not one to be read with out a DISCLAIMER -- especially for a sensitive reader. The Red Tent tells the little-known Biblical story of Dinah, daughter of the patriarch Jacob and his wife, Leah. Dinah is the daughter of Jacob, whose… In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. 12. The book travels from Haran (contemporary Iraq/Syria), through Canaan and into Shechem (Israel), and into Egypt. What strikes you about the cultural differences Dinah encounters vis-à-vis food, clothing, work, and male-female relationships. Somehow, I skimmed over the other. This is a beautifully told story centering around the four wives of Jacob, the Biblical son of Isaac and Rebecca. Rather than using an unnamed third-person narrator, Diamant utilizes a figure immersed in the stories recounted in The Red Tent. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Dina was not raped, says the author of "The Red Tent." THE RED TENT By Anita Diamant New York: Picador, 1997 ISBN # 0-312-19551-6 261 pages. Discuss how she changes and matures. Dinah’s point of view—an observer privy to extremely intimate details—allows Dinah to present the private details of one family’s history and to weave between objective and subjective perspectives. The Red Tent is a reimagining of the story of Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, the man who, according to the Bible wrestled an angel and won the name ‘Israel’ and whose 12 sons became the 12 tribes of Israel. Comments by Bob Corbett April 2009. Diamant retells the story as the blending of two cultures and the desire of a woman to find love at any cost. This retelling of a Bible story from Genesis is concerned with the notion of childbirth and motherhood, and what makes a mother a mother. 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