Well I finished the story of Dinah, and with apologies to Heidi, I don't think this one is a keeper. I thought the final 2/3 was better than the first part, but for some reason it just didn't quite do it for me. Reading this book is kind of like watching a flashback movie, except instead of going to the flashback, you just watch the old person telling the story the whole time. Sure it's interesting, and you don't want to get up until you hear the end, but it doesn't really transport you. Titanic without Leonardo DiCaprio. It makes sense that that style would be used to emphasize the importance of storytelling in Dinah's history and that Dinah lives on through the females in her family passing on the story through the generations, but I think it makes it difficult to really build the other characters and there's not enough dialogue.
What a great story though - love, sex, murder, revenge. Dinah is claimed in marriage by a prince who is so in love with her that he agrees to be circumcised as part of her bride-price along with his father and all of his male subjects. That is true love. I always thought Jacob was a heroic character in the Bible, but in this story he ends up ruining his daughter's life and living a cursed life until his miserable death. Also, the brief account of Dinah in the Bible says that the prince rapes and defiles her, but in this story they fall in love at first sight and he promptly drags her to the bedroom where they do nothing but have sex and bath each other for about a week, which I hope for Dinah's sake is closer to the truth.
One big point I'll take away from this book is to be grateful to be a woman in 2010, rather than Genesis. Here are some things I can do that Dinah could not: get mad if my husband takes another wife, have drugs stronger than herb tonics during childbirth, eat meals with my husband, leave my house during my period...just to name a few.
Here is a good representative passage from when Dinah first sees and then has to cross the Euphrates as a child -
"I stood by the water's edge until the last trace of daylight had drained from the sky, and later, after the evening meal, I returned to savor the smell of the river, which was as heady to me as incense, heavy and dark and utterly different from the sweet, thin aroma of well water. My mother, Leah, would have said I smelled the rotting grasses of the marsh and the mingled presence of so many animals and men, but I recognized the scent of this water the way I knew the perfume of my mother's body. ***
I had no time to be afraid. The pack animals were at my back, forcing me ahead, so I entered the river and felt the water rise to my ankles and calves. The current felt like a caress on my knees and thighs. In an instant, my belly and chest were covered, and I giggled. There was nothing to fear! ... I moved my arms through the water, feeling them float on the surface, watching the waves and wake that followed my gesture. Here was magic, I thought. Here was something holy. ***
Later that night, when I lay down to sleep among the women, I told my mothers what I had seen and felt by the side of the river and then in the water, during my crossing. Zilpah pronounced me bewitched by the river god. Leah reached out and squeezed my had, reassuring us both. But Inna told me, 'You are a child of water. Your spirit answered the spirit of the river. You must live by a river someday, Dinah. Only by a river will you be happy.'"
Up next: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
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