The Red Tent

By: Anita Diamant / Narrated By: Carol Bilger

Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins

Beautiful, with enough gore to make it soooo Biblical!

From the get-go there was a problem. I hadn’t realized The Red Tent had been around so long or that it was so well-known when an Accomplice suggested it as a Fave. But after digging, I saw it was indeed a modern classic.

This made m’ husband all puffy and ticked off and spouting eeeeendlessly on how it was NOT and how other books WERE. I just kinda sat there, eyes glazing over, thinking:

The Patriarchy.

Dudes just don’t understand, and it would appear some women don’t either. I read rave reviews; I read reviews about how this wasn’t Christian (Uhm, hello? The Oooooold Testament?!?!); I read reviews that this was sacrilegious cuz it “sexualized the Bible” and aaaaalll sorts of stuff. But ahem, the biblical founding fathers had oooodles of wives and how on god’s green earth does one think their sons got there? That said? The first part of the book is mostly of Jacob bedding his wives. Now, we all know I’m a TOTAL prude and my toes shoulda been curling, but they didn’t. Rather? The whole time I listened, I kept thinking:

Women Power.

The story of Dinah, the book begins with her being raised by four mothers, her biological mother Leah, and Leah’s sisters/a half-sister. Most of their power stems from their time in the Red Tent, where they go to menstruate and to bear children. This is NOT a place of segregation; rather, the book has it as being a place of celebration, of sisters and womenfolk coming together to share life and wisdom. And to plot and plan. These are not scheming women but ones who wield the paltry power they’re allowed with insight and with great precision.

Naturally, I had a sense of dread and foreboding through the entirety of the story, what with this story being taken from the ultra-violent Old Testament (Heck, the New Testament has a crucifixion or two in it as well…!), and when we got to The Rape of Dinah, I thought things were NOT going to be written as they were. Here, author Anita Diamant takes an old story and fleshes it out, creates situations out of whole cloth but in keeping with how the day to day lives in ancient times occurred. Yes, Dinah COULD’VE been in love, COULD’VE given herself freely! Huzzah huzzah huzzah!

Then I googled Dinah’s story and saw the bloodbath to come, and then I looked down and realized there was a LOT of time left in the story AFTER the bloodletting. But Diamant fleshes out Dinah’s life past the point where there’s any reason for her to live; she just continues to exist on the fringes, eking out breaths and days with only her position as biological mother to keep her going.

I truuuuly loved that she was a midwife here, that she was guided early on in such an art; that she knew strong women who could shepherd in life, or help cease it when it threatened dire consequences for the mother. And I soooo loved each of Dinah’s mothers, each of the friends that were sorta bequeathed to her at the end. Yessss, even tho’ I very much feared the Honor Killing, and even tho’ I very much fear that THAT is how Dinah’s ending was in a Biblical time, I soooo appreciated Diamant crafting a good life, a second, a third existence after her first with Jacob’s wives is over and done with.

After our little audiobook club discussed the Biblical story (Maman’s a Bible Study scholar, doncha know?), we got into the narration. Narrator Carol Bilger had been entirely unknown to each of us, and tho’ she didn’t even TRY to vary the voices for the characters, her performance was still AWEsome. My sister suggested that, since this is of Dinah looking back on her life, it was entirely reasonable that this should be the single voice of Dinah doing the telling. I posited that, as this was an audiobook and not print, it very much coulda been confusing for the listener.

But it was not. Bilger, while not attempting vocal distinctions, still managed to keep the story, the characters clear. Dunno how exactly, whether by pacing, or by breathing, dunno, but it wasn’t confusing in the least. Further, her performance had emotional resonance, making me feel just as numb as Dinah was, how she was the walking dead for a while. And when she cursed Jacob and her brothers? Oh. My. Gosh. Bilger’s tones had m’ very skin crawling, letting me know the devastation that would be visited upon those vile men.

Okay, I’ll let my husband have his rants; I mean, he’s never read this so what’s he jabbering about anyway? And I’ll let the sticklers have their opinions. As for me, however, I found The Red Tent to be a story of strong women, Dinah in particular, and I thought it was a completely believable Day by Day in the Entire Life Of… sort of story. Beautiful technique, gorgeously wrought, great narration.

It’s just that, if you think you’re going to find what lonely shepherds are gonna do to their poor sheep disgusting, well? Ya miiiiight wanna skip through that part. And?

If you think that women delighting in the physicality of sex is sacrilege?

Oh, dude! Run like the wind!

Me, I’m staying here. Our audiobook club? This was a definite Hit! And I’ll say it again:

Women Power, yesssss!