The Red Tent — Still on the Shelf
This is another in my Still on the Shelf series, where I tell you, book by blessed book, why I periodically run a dust rag across them, pull them off the shelf, and open them up to read.
A lifetime of reading has left me with a sizable number of books. Throughout the years I’ve donated them for tax deductions and traded them for credit by the carload. But for all the trimming and weeding my collection has undergone these past decades, the ones remaining on the shelves are there for a reason: they’ve withstood the tests of time. Although I’m more inclined to pick up my Kindle these days, there are still plenty of books on my shelves, and The Red Tent is one of them.
The Red Tent
by Anita Diamant
Publisher: Picador
Copyright: 10th Anniversary Edition (August 21, 2007)
352 pages
(There’s also a TV miniseries)
The written account of the world’s history came to us through centuries of enforced feminine silence. While it’s no secret that women’s stories and their perspective of historical events were related by men — if told or written at all! — I don’t believe we realize the impact this lack of voice has had, and continues to have, on our lives today.
Part of the treatment, part of our therapy, certainly must include retelling history to include the equally important feminine view. In The Red Tent, Anita Diamant joins in on this effort to apply the medicine that will cleanse our souls, wipe the slate clean, contribute to our healing.
Rewriting history, whether a factual or fictional retelling, encourages restoration. This novel joins others like Ahab’s Wife, Wide Sargasso Sea, and a host of many, many others in giving the voice of woman to the collective human past — both real and fictional. Come to think of it, this is probably why they’ve been sitting together on my shelf for years. The Red Tent and these other books tell the flip side — the female side — and round out the story. And what a different story it is.
The Red Tent is set in the time of the Old Testament. Narrating the story is Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob, who is regarded in the Bible as the patriarch of the Israelites. Dinah is mentioned briefly in the Bible, given only one line. Yet, Anita Diamant gives her full voice throughout this novel. It’s a rich voice that tells the story of the bonds between women, the fascination of love, and the consequences of betrayal.
However, as Joseph Campbell has postulated . . . the Bible serves as a metaphor for truth.
In Dinah’s story, and in our story, here is that truth . . .
This ancient biblical setting was a time of great shifting in human values: from a religion of goddess worship to one of Judaism, from a system of matriarchy to patriarchy. It was a time of painful transitions.
The shift from ancient goddess cultures to those of patriarchy rule took hundreds of years, as does any major change in social systems. The divergence, division, separation, and polarization — the struggle between differing sets of values and their eventual intermingling before one comes out on top the clear winner — is birthed from centuries of intolerance, violence, and chaos.
Jacob and his sons were insistent on the ways of the god of their forefathers and were not tolerant of any other beliefs. It is this intolerance that set the stage for Dinah’s betrayal and imminent self-outcasting.
So here’s the key takeaway I want to scream from the rooftops, and while it isn’t news, I scream nonetheless . . .
History lacks the clear, bold, true voice of the feminine.
Let me say that again:
History lacks the clear, bold, true voice of the feminine.
What Anita Diamant has done with this novel is help rewrite history from the female perspective — the victim perspective. She bridges tradition with our modern experience and gives substance to the hurt felt throughout much of history, the agony that still underscores our lives today.
That pain and hurt and agony and sting is constant.
It’s unrelenting.
It existed in ancient times.
It exists now.
It existed for all time in between.
The wound still festers.
It.
Still.
Festers.
Still ! ! !
The healing must continue.
The retelling must continue.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves, once said that your greatest contribution comes from your pain.
Similarly, the greatest collective contribution of women must come from the pain of the ages.
Retelling the stories is a strong start, and one we must carry on for a long time yet. There is much to be retold.
The lack of the feminine voice throughout history is a deep and dirty laceration in the core of society. It calls for copious amounts of medicine, stitching, and time for the truth to surface and take its rightful place in our cores, inside of us.
We must continue to apply salve to the wound — not to comfort or pacify, but to balance and restore.
The Red Tent is Anita Diamant’s contribution. With this novel, she inspired a new genre of fiction, one intent on healing.
And that’s why it’s still on the shelf.
A version of this essay appeared previously on the website of an independent Jewish women students’ group. It was also published by a now-defunct book review organization.
