I just finished The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. It's a fictionalised account of Dinah, daughter of Leah from the book of Genesis. My mother asked me to read this book, it's not one I would have picked up of my own accord, and I can't deny it's well written but it still wasn't my cup of tea.
I got the feeling reading it that it was A Very Important Book. One of those books that supposed to empower women with its great insight into what it's like to be a woman. The book was even organised into three sections that basically embodied the narrator (Dinah, who has no voice in the Bible) as child, maiden and mother. There's an extended Prologue that details the personalities of her "mothers" (Leah and her father's other wives: Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah) and that was really one of the best parts of the book for me. I enjoyed reading Diamant's take on the Bible story. To look at what the women might have been feeling about the events taking place but then it fell to a classic problem of feminist literature.
The men were human and the women weren't. The men in The Red Tent are flawed beings. Most of what they do they do out of greed, or jealousy, or fear, or lust, or some other negative emotion. The women's actions always seemed reasoned when compared to that of the men. It's not that I'd say it was a male bashing book, it was just that the men were portrayed with a negative light that didn't fall on the women. The women had some special insight or power simply because they were women that the men didn't, and couldn't, possess. I don't agree with that. I think men and women have different talents but that doesn't make one gender better than the other or more insightful, it just makes them different.
I also have to admit that I'm a classicist - I don't like when an author changes the original story to suit his or her own needs. In the Bible Dinah is raped by an Egyptian prince. The man does fall in love with her and does offer a bride-price, which I felt Diamant accurately portrayed, but she was not a willing participant. I understand why she changed it to have Dinah love the prince and reciprocate his affections. She wanted the child-maiden-mother structure and that would be difficult to do if Dinah did not bear a child of love. So I can forgive that. What I didn't like is that as a result of her brothers killing all the men of the city in revenge for her rape, or out of greed in Diamant's telling, that Dinah then cursed the name of Jacob. That the author decided to change the renaming of Jacob to Israel from an honour from God to a hiding of the name of his family in shame. That fell a little too far from the original story for my taste. There were other instances but that one in particular coupled the two problems I had with the book: the motivations of the male characters and the divergence from a text that has survived for thousands of years.
So, for mistreating men's motivations, diverging from a classic story and for puffing up its own importance I can only give The Red Tent a 2 out of 5.
Showing posts with label legends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legends. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
The Mammoth Book of Arthurian Legends
The first book of the year for me was The Mammoth Book of Arthurian Legends edited by Mike Ashley. It's organised into three sections. The first deals with how Arthur became King of the Britons, the second is tales of knights of the Round Table and the third is the fall of Arthur.
The second section was definitely my favourite. It was what I expected most from the book when I first started it. The stories were an easy, enjoyable read and detailed the legends surrounding Arthur. I really enjoyed "Sir Marrock the Wolf" by Allen French. It's not a story I'd really heard about before, barely mentions Arthur or the Round Table but still captures the feel of an Arthurian story.
The feel of Arthurian stories is what was missing in the third section. Aside from the almost required story of "The Passing of Arthur" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, I found that the authors that Ashley chose to represent the final days of Camelot were odd choices. They were mostly from more modern authors who were using the legend as a framework for a story that was part of the Arthurian cycle but weren't really Arther legends themselves. "The Dog's Story" by Eleanor Arnason was a good story. I enjoyed seeing the court of Arthur from the perspective of a man turned into a dog by Merlin but I didn't think it really fit in a book that calls itself a Mammoth Book of Legends because it really didn't read like a legend.
The stories in the final section were either trying to speak of Arthur as history (which he may have been) or as myth (which he may have been, though that seems less likely) but lost the feel of legend by often suggesting that either Arthur and Merlin were lovers or that Arthur loved Lancelot more than he loved Guinevere. That's an interesting take on the story but I was hoping for something a bit more scholarly.
The first section suffered a little from being too scholarly. The stories were a little too close to the source and came off a bit dry. I enjoy reading those types of stories, like The Iliad but it does take a little time to get through the so-and-so, son of so-and-so.
Anyway, an OK read. I'll give it a 3 out of 5. The thing I came away from it was the the members of Monty Python probably did have at least a passing familiarity with the legendary Quest for the Holy Grail because Galahad had no helmet and a white shield with a red cross. He also had a small adventure at the Castle of the Maidens.
The second section was definitely my favourite. It was what I expected most from the book when I first started it. The stories were an easy, enjoyable read and detailed the legends surrounding Arthur. I really enjoyed "Sir Marrock the Wolf" by Allen French. It's not a story I'd really heard about before, barely mentions Arthur or the Round Table but still captures the feel of an Arthurian story.
The feel of Arthurian stories is what was missing in the third section. Aside from the almost required story of "The Passing of Arthur" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, I found that the authors that Ashley chose to represent the final days of Camelot were odd choices. They were mostly from more modern authors who were using the legend as a framework for a story that was part of the Arthurian cycle but weren't really Arther legends themselves. "The Dog's Story" by Eleanor Arnason was a good story. I enjoyed seeing the court of Arthur from the perspective of a man turned into a dog by Merlin but I didn't think it really fit in a book that calls itself a Mammoth Book of Legends because it really didn't read like a legend.
The stories in the final section were either trying to speak of Arthur as history (which he may have been) or as myth (which he may have been, though that seems less likely) but lost the feel of legend by often suggesting that either Arthur and Merlin were lovers or that Arthur loved Lancelot more than he loved Guinevere. That's an interesting take on the story but I was hoping for something a bit more scholarly.
The first section suffered a little from being too scholarly. The stories were a little too close to the source and came off a bit dry. I enjoy reading those types of stories, like The Iliad but it does take a little time to get through the so-and-so, son of so-and-so.
Anyway, an OK read. I'll give it a 3 out of 5. The thing I came away from it was the the members of Monty Python probably did have at least a passing familiarity with the legendary Quest for the Holy Grail because Galahad had no helmet and a white shield with a red cross. He also had a small adventure at the Castle of the Maidens.
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