This is the story of Dinah, a figure out of the Bible. She was the sister of Joseph and Jacob's only daughter. As Dinah says in the prologue, she has been largely forgotten and "on those occasions when I was remembered, it was as a victim. Near the beginning of your holy book, there is a passage that seems to say I was raped and continues with the bloody tale of how my honor was avenged."
This isn't the tale she tells. The Jewish Times calls the novel an "extended midrash or exegesis--filling in gaps left by the biblical text" and I've seen it described as what the Bible might have been if told by women. And certainly that female point of view and Diamant's research and imagination give a fresh, vivid and completely engrossing perspective to this tale of the time of the Biblical "patriarchs." But this isn't one of those reverent, dogmatic biblical stories; this doesn't read as a Jewish version of "Christian fiction" and in fact there is quite a bit of goddess worship depicted in this tale.
Dinah tells how she "had four mothers"--her birth mother Leah and three "mother-aunties" and as the only daughter among their many sons, she was the one told the stories of the women in "the red tent"--the menstrual tent that is the province of the women. The novel is told in three parts. The first, "My Mothers" brings those four wives of Jacob, all sisters by different mothers, to life: Practical and earthy Leah, with one blue and one green eye who smells of baked bread. Beautiful Rachel, a healer who smells of sweet water. Quick-minded, spiritual and bitter half-Egyptian Zilpah, the half-Nubian Bilnah, wise and good with hair like "springy grass" who smells of loam. Diamant makes wonderful characters of them all."My Story" puts a different, but logical twist on the scant details in the tragedy of Dinah in the biblical text, and "Egypt" deals with her life in Egypt and how survival turns to healing.
If I have a criticism, it's more what she makes of the men of the bible. I thought in the first half her depictions were quite nuanced, that Dinah showed both good and bad in her father and brothers--I'd even call Jacob quite lovable in the first half, and there were interesting sides at first to her Joseph.
To some extent, I understand this depiction. As she said in the afterward, she rethought the "rape" because of the love shown by the man accused in submitting himself to circumcision. Even without the motive of a sister raped, the retribution depicted in the bible is ugly enough. Take away that motive, then Simon and Levi at least can only be villains.
But Diamant tars with a far broader brush, and in that I felt flattened her male characters and missed an opportunity when reunited. After all, the story of Joseph and his brothers is among the most moving in the bible because it is a tale of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption. I wish Diamant had left Dinah and her brothers with a bit of that grace.
Despite that criticism, this was a pleasure to read, and I loved much of the spins and twists woven out of the Biblical narrative and the depiction of the bonds between women at the dawn of civilization.
