6/3/2023 0 Comments Diamant the red tentThat doesn’t mean it has no power, that it wasn’t exactly what I needed when I discovered it. It is shameless in seizing the tropes of sisterhood and ancient world mythology, in celebrating women’s power. And the voices aren’t just created for Leah and Rachel, but for their slave handmaids, Zilpah and Bilhah. It gives women a voice in a historical era where they had little to no voice, especially in the Hebrew texts. There’s a whole other side that men ignored or buried, and I am here to tell you that side. It takes a story told as holy scripture, and it tells the reader, that’s not the whole story. It fills the most important purpose of any retelling or fanfic: subversion.The Red Tent is, I firmly believe, the best piece of published Bible fanfic out there. There’s not much to it, in the biblical canon. I grew up knowing the story of Jacob’s wives and children with the rest of the Old Testament tales, but in case you haven’t, here’s a refresher on Dinah, the narrator of The Red Tent. It was an exhilarating and enriching form of rebellion, as entrenched as I still was in a conservative, fundamentalist Baptist environment. It spurred my first awakening as a feminist. A Baptist preacher’s daughter lent it to me early in high school, and it was not just formative - it changed my goddamn life.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |