Zoom, Zoom...

Off on the private jet-broom for a bit of a (spontaneous) much-needed holiday. See youse all in about a week or so. Fare thee well lovelies.

Kiki from Kiki's Delivery service. Image from here.

Book Club Mamas: Review of The Red Tent

Well, here I am back again in my old digs. Fancy. A spur-of-the-moment-just-because-I-feel like it move, (and because I feel the need for slipping back into the blog equivalent of a very comfy, if dubious and rather smelly, pair of old (stripey) socks. Contrariness indeed.

So 'ere tis. My Book Club Mamas review of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. Warning: there may be some spoilers here, although I don't believe what I have said gives much away because the events in the novel are taken from The Bible, and it is the emotional life of the novel that becomes central.

Funnily, I've been slightly hesitant about this one. Not sure how to come at it - on a blog that is. Very different to having a stab at this within the crumbling towers of academia. And funnily because it's such an...accessible (? for want of a better word) novel. And also having re-read it after a space of 5 years or so, I do feel quite clear on what I think of it all, and what I think it's about.

My hesitation may be due, not to the fact that it is a very popular and much-loved novel, (over a million copies sold worldwide since its initial publication in 1999), but because of an unusual reason. Unusual perhaps because normally I am so very not bugged by these things. That is, that I feel a certain weariness over the criticism this book has received from more conservative quarters. I don't want to get into any God arguments with anyone, and discussions of this book seem to provoke some very heated discussion on that front. And although I love a good debate and sometimes - just sometimes I actually miss academia for that very reason, I have no interest in engaging in a debate about the validity of Diamant's "history" as opposed to the, er...history the Bible presents...ahem...which seems to me like a lot of somewhat irrelevant barking up the wrong tree. I'd glaze over and have to check my pulse I'm afraid. I'd rather have a heated discussion about the fairies that live down the bottom of my garden. Well, they do - you have doubts hey?

The Red Tent: A Novel, by Anita Diamant. See? It says "novel".

So, let me say, I fail to see what all the knicker-twisting is about. I have studied the Bible, but not at any great length and only as a literary text - chiefly as an academic tool to decode other texts (many of which make liberal reference to the Big Ol' Book). And I find arguments regarding what is Truth, or not, as it may be a bit tedious. I'm all wrung out and (hung)over that one as a result of 3 years of undergrad Philosophy. Truth, (with a capital T) is a 21 year old boy with a guitar, a cigarette, a bottle of whiskey, and a Jack Kerouac obsession. Been there and done that way for too many late nights.

Ok. Down to business. Apologies for overstating the bleeding obvious dear reader, but The Red Tent being a novel - a piece of fiction and never claiming to be more (or less) so - rather than some kind of revisionist history of the Bibble as it has been accused of being - is to me an absorbing and imaginative excavation, and in a way (for the idealist that lurks in the hearts of many of us), a kind of recuperation of lost matrilineal "histories". These being oral histories, and "women's mysteries", in that they are of a nature that emphasise menstrual and birthing practices; and female rites of passage - so you can possibly imagine that sexuality and death are fairly well explored within the story.

The red tent in the novel is a place where the women of the tribe retreat to during menstruation and birth, and where men are not permitted. It is within the red tent that the majority of the first half of the book takes place.

Diamant has imagined these rites, and the lives of her female characters, (the male characters are as shadowy and unformed as the women of the Bible generally are), because imagination is pretty much all we have to fall back on. It is the imagining of female loss and also what has been lost. Of a rich spiritual tradition that was less in thrall of male gods and more connected to what we now perceive as the Divine Feminine. This is the idea the novel presents anyway.

And it is an imagining that depicts women in relation to one another - the woven complexities, conflicts and rivalries of these relationships - those of the wives of Jacob - which are central to the first section of the novel.

For myself as a reader, this approach suggests that Diamant is seeking to test, and interrogate the assumptions behind who holds the power to include or exclude, and who has the power to actively make and record history; with that, what particular stories are being singled out to be told and how these are being told. She doesn't throw out definitives, she throws up questions. She tests the echo - the hollowness of a history that has essentially excluded an entire sex (as authors of their own traditions and history).

The tale itself is set in, well, Biblical times, which is a rather nebulous pre-10 Commandments era. And it focuses on a particular oddity, (well, perhaps because it could be said to be highly ambiguous) ,that can be found in Genesis and which focuses on the rape, or "rape" (however the reader interprets this passage I don't think that's a spoiler) of Dinah, a daughter of Jacob. Jacob who, my word, had a lot of sons being one of those fecund Biblical forefathers who spread his seed and populated the earth etc. He had an awful lot of goats too it would seem.

Thusly, within this section of the Bible there is a lot of begetting, and er, begatting. Diamant pulls out these rather long and overwhelming lists of who gave birth to who (as seen in Genesis) and animates them - giving each birth a story and emotional life, and emphasising the feminine lines of descent. Female culture in the novel is not a "sub-culture" but an assertive and embodied presence or "ecology" to employ a more wanky, yet pretty term. And Dinah the central character, has many mothers - four in fact, who each figure as different aspects and representations - both symbolic and material - of the Feminine and its associated traditions, and artifacts, (for instance - midwife Rachel's birthing bricks), and who each give her different gifts. They also offer a challenge to traditional assumptions of male power.

And it is in Diamant's inversion of Dinah's rape in The Bible (because whether the rape is physical by her husband or psychological by her father and brothers it is a rape), which is the central premise and crucial dramatic act of the novel, and which Diamant engages to present her challenge to Patriarchal law, the law of the Father and God-centred authority.

The Red Tent conjures what has been unwritten and unrecorded, (feminists would argue that which has been effaced and excluded, others would say omitted or overlooked). That which has been spoken as poetry, song, ritual, community, celebration and grieving. That which evaporates and dies with memory. Diamant's is a speculative history, a fiction that attempts to give shape to and acknowledge the validity of oral forms of knowledge and which questions Absolutes and their claim upon Truth and History (and yes - those capitals are all painfully deliberate).

Personally, I found that I was more engaged with the second half of the book - which centred on Dinah's story. The first half of the novel was fascinating, but there were so many births, and the atmosphere of the red tent itself was so redolent and well-imagined, (to a somewhat stifling degree), that at times I felt like I needed to come up for air.

Also, because of all the begetting and begatting, it too felt like a relentless line of women popping out babies. A potted history of the tribes of the Fertile (literally!) Crescent. Entirely deliberate on Diamant's part I'm thinking. In the second half of the novel, the tale shifts in setting and focus, and the emotional life of Dinah comes to the fore, and her own experience of motherhood and loss is explored, as well as her path as midwife. In some ways it feels as though the novel is actually two books. First the tale of the Mothers of Dinah, and the second as Dinah, Daughter of the Wives of Jacob.

I find this a seductive novel, not least because I find it so richly imagined. Diamant's approach could so easily render a story little more than an academic protest, or a strident attempt at re-presenting a right-on preaching-to-the-converted-feminist treatise, and (as some have argued irrationally) an anachronistic tale. However the author infuses her characters - particularly Dinah - with an immediacy and emotional weight. I would disagree with some who would argue that Dinah is too emotionally distant, only because I quite enjoyed the fact that the character wasn't overdrawn, nor dramatically or operatically overblown.

Personally I was able to have an empathic response to Dinah's experience because every thought and detail of her response to her situation wasn't hammered out and overstated. In a way, and although I slightly cringe at the term, Dinah becomes an everywoman, (or everymother) because her story contains many of the recognisable elements or emotional resonances that are familiar to women on a visceral level. We are able to slip inside of Dinah, even though she is a world of (unrecorded) "history" away from us.

There's loads more I could say about the women's relationships with men, and Dinah's experience with her mothers and mother-in-law, as well as the cultural dislocation, and, well...loads isn't there. But maybe I can leave that to you?

Off On My Broomstick To A New Home...

Ok, I'm just burling through here at high speed to let youse people know of my new blog home. I can now be found over here...

At The Magick Teapot Chronicles, (http://magickteapotchronicles.blogspot.com)

It's a bit of a fixer-upper, and there are only the bare bones there at present. I have yet to add lots and lots of lovely links to my linky bar. But please do join me and make yourself at home - there is free-flowing chai whenever you want some ; )

It's been lovely being here, but time to move onwards...or sideways. Erm, you probably get the gist.

I have yet to meet all the lovely people in my followers box, and explore your blogs, so hopefully we can stay in touch. Bear with me, and warm blessings to all who have sailed on the good (er, slightly wicked) ship DSOTB.

Bloggy Renos

Good evening lovelies! It's been a little while hasn't it? This is partly due to my attendance at a particularly beautiful wedding last weekend. Sigh...delightful. I'm sure many of you have a lot of news I will be needing to catch up with you all...I shall get to that and look forward to going visiting you in my virtual phaeton.

I've also been doing a lot of fiddling behind the scenes, (in entirely legitimate ways I assure you), and you may have noticed a few changes here on't blog. I've also been setting up a new blog, and was going to be all secret squirrel-y about it, but I will announce it anon. I need a fresh start. There are things that bug me about being here. It represents a stage of my life that was radically different to the one I am living now. But I'm not going to scrap DSOTB.

So you may have noticed that my username has changed (singular! and I hope not too confusing dear reader). The thing is "docwitch" irks me, and was only ever intended to be an ironic, silly thing,(and accompanied by the image of a cat - myself - in an 18th Century frock I fail to see how it could be otherwise). But, if truth be told it is an absolute clanger of a name - heavy and pretentious sounding. And the irony of it is frequently mistaken for something altogether, well, lacking in irony. Nettles is actually a nickname of mine. One that at first I detested, but which has grown on me. Erm...

And it does say something about me - I do love herbs, and I do have a bit of sting, (it's that Mercury and Venus in Scorpio, tsk, tsk). But just dunk me in some hot water and brew me until I'm dozy and I quickly become completely innocuous. Possibly medicinal. Although that may be stretching the analogy a little too far.

And although this may be revealing a little too much, "Nettles" is very much related to my real name (as is my little portrait there in the corner). Ok, moving right along...nothing to see here.

My restlessness has me tinkering with my gadgets, and I am completely confounded by the arrangement of them. They won't cooperate, however I try to arrange things. This is only a recent "improvement" with Blogger, but it drives me to distraction. So I have removed all my awards for now, and will try to arrange them properly at a later date.

And on another note, we've just had a full moon in Taurus. I found it a gentle, beauteous yet pragmatic energy this time around. I did over-indulge on champagne (well, it was at a wedding). But for the first time in ages, the full moon wasn't an intense, overpowering trip. How was it for you dear reader?

Wuthering Heights and Olden Days Frocks.

Just a quick drop-in to say hello and that I haven't gone visiting on the blogsies much lately due to other commitments and distractions. I have a huge pile of stuff to get through at the moment, and am only moving at half-speed through it all due to health issues.

But! *hyperventilates with excitement*, a number of you may be aware of just how much I adore all things Austen and all things Bronte. I tone down my obsession here, but this was the scholarky (it's a word, because I hath deemed it so), path I was heading down at one point, except that it wasn't considered a "new and original" enough topic by my fellow academics, and thus would be less likely to attract the PhD scholarship my actual topic did. Should have stuck to my guns, but I was young and self-doubting. Anyway, this is despite the fact that my Honours thesis, which was on E.B's Wuthering Heights was praised as being a "beautiful new reading of the novel" *snorts tea through nose along with a goodly amount of skepticism*. How's that for a little shameless boast? Oh well. Blame it on the excitement. But the point is, is that it's absolutely possible to bring something new to a reading, and there is always an unfinished element to reading and interpreting a story, and we shouldn't be daunted by the monolithic status of certain novels...and look at the fun they had with Lost in Austen and Bridget Jones (which didn't do much for me, but I'm glad it's there).

Tangent! See the thing is, I have never seen a half-decent production of WH. Maybe I'm just being too picky, (quite possibly), but I have despised the ones I have seen, and they have completely failed to capture the elements of the novel, or they have been anaemic versions of the story. This could be at least in part due to the novel embodying a kind of Nature Mystery, and a circular time-space collapse/head-f**k; and also so many of its elusive elements are enacted off the page/screen. Yet I have always felt that a deft hand could produce a breathtaking screen adaptation of Gothic deliciousness that could avoid the usual lazy and frankly banal devices that are mostly preoccupied with the straight love story aspects of the novel ("ooh - will she choose the rich boy or the poor brutal scruff "? That kind of thing, which is only a part of what EB was getting at. *Stops briefly to genuflect at creepy shrine of EB in the corner of the room*).

Cathy and Heathcliff, (ITV version)

So, this Sunday night, being the optimist that I am, will find me parked in front of the teev in order to view a screening of the latest ITV production of Wuthering Heights. I have greatly enjoyed some of the ITV Austen productions/confections of these past couple of years: S&S, MP, NA, and the very lovely Persuasion. So, I'm so wanting this one to be a good 'un.

And if I had my way, I wouldn't go back in time, but I'm happy to weave elements from time's past into my life now. Tea cups smothered in roses (and leisurely afternoon teas), and the frocks! Oh the frocks...

In fact, I'm off to sew a frock that is just a little Austen-esque. I am attending the wedding of the Preciousssesss** next weekend, so I had better get cracking on this little number.

The pattern is a fave I've had in my stash since I made it 15 years ago, (I never let go of patterns). It's so comfortable and feels so lovely on.

I'm making it out of the loveliest grey lawn, strewn with subtle but sparkly flowers, and it makes me think of a watercolour sun-shower.

And because the lawn is see-through, I have the most buttery soft muslin to line it all with, (can't go shocking the punters now can we?). And it's all done on a very meagre budget, so I am feeling a bit smug.

I am always happy to drift around in "olden days" (as The Moon refers to any period prior to the year of my birth), dresses and have never been at home in jeans. Long hair and sprigged muslin is kind of where it's at for me. I suppose that makes me an anachronism. But I have never been a great follower of fa-fa-fa-fashun. I am the Anti-hip.

Now, a very quick question (if you've managed to make it this far). I'm tinkering behind the scenes. So, dear reader, I ask thee: Blogger or Wordpress? And is Wordpress ok for dummies? I mean, really? Or would I have to contort myself into all sorts of scary html knots? Advice appreciated!

**me darlins Sol y luna and the Ginger Hobo.

Stumbling Out of the Cave. So to Speak.

Still can't sit at my 'pooter for very long, (my back still "has a sore-ow" as The Moon used to say when she was a little 'un). I am definitely going to get it seen to, and thanks to everyone who offered advice on this front. Always appreciated and taken on board.

I am still emerging from the Dark Moon, and finding myself blinking and somewhat dazed out in the light again. And I'm emerging from this little cave a bit slowly this time 'round, as I've also been knee deep in painting, (quite literally I'm afraid, but let's not discuss it. Ahem). My Pa has been visiting and helping me with said painting, and I now have a vastly improved and rather cheerful kitchen, (will take a photie when I have done The Dishes, (yes, that does require capitalisation, and there are many alarming reasons why).

The Dark Moon has been a biggie for me this time around. Would it be so terribly trite of me to say that it has been a momentous one? Transformative? A rebirth even? (Mommymystic - you were right on that score). How? Can't really explain how...and that would be exceedingly dull for you dear reader. And I'm finding lately that this wee spot here on da blogs* is only scratching the surface in terms of what I can talk about. I find myself a little lost in trying to articulate all that is going on. The beautiful possibilities, the synchronicities**, and also other things...grief. The much-needed sloughing off of layers.

As an almost aside, but not quite as it all still relates to these Dark Moon ponderings, (and forgive me whilst I get all visual for a moment here). This is where I aspire to be, or where I have an element of wishful thinking attached:

Yet it is she (below) who has been my Indicator Card, and a reflection of my reality for quite some years now, (before her it was The High Priestess).

Sigh...why do I feel a little shame in this, I wonder? But with the deepening, I do find a softening. That I am growing softer. I need to learn the lessons I'm learning - slowly, clumsily, sometimes painfully, and even ridiculously. And it's not all a complete bummer. Even when it looks that way. But when I contemplate the Queen of Swords, I do feel a deep sadness.

Forgive any opacity.

Do you have any image/symbol/figure/tarot card you resonate with, or that has deep significance for you?

* Still contemplating the blog reno.

**Erm. Do you have any idea how many times I have collided with the concept/imagery/language connected to Red Tents these past few days? No? Well, let me just say it's all very spooky 'possums. Heheeeee.

Dark Moon Rumblings.

Once again we head into the Dark Moon time, (this weekend), and it will be in Libra - both my Sun and Moon sign. In fact, this weekend will be my birthday, and the moon will be in the phase and sign it was at the time of my birth, (a lunar and solar return as such). And I'm feeling pulled in two very different directions. On one side towards celebration - fine food and dancing and music and revelry with lovely friends and family. On the other, toward dark moon kind of pursuits and proclivities: retreating, tarot reading, dreaming and meditation, sipping tea containing rose petals, valerian, hops and chamomile; reading, (The Tenderness of Wolves, and re-reading Love in the Time of Cholera). And taking candlelit baths laced with frankincense oil, making plans...all the Aries full moon stuff is coming to fruition and fresh beginnings are calling me. New beginnings of different kinds and flavours.

Image from here.

I've been doing a good deal of solitary walking and meandering. And finking. And I am also realising that I've done something bloody awful to my back (or perhaps I've just worn bits of it out!), and sitting down for any length of time is nearly impossible. Not that I like sitting down for any length of time, really. Oh, btw - may I ask of you dear reader: Chiropractor or Osteopath? I have never yet had to resort to this, and have never suffered back crapola before. I do have an almost visceral fear and revulsion for chiropractics, (apologies to chiropractors everywhere), but then I am a bit of a strange bird. And it's based in little other than vague feelings as I'm quite ignorant regarding the science...

Anyway. Onwards. Or rather, back to the point I was making my way gradually, and painfully tangentially towards...

A little while ago I was having wibbles about blogging, and trying to sift through exactly what it is I've been feeling about it all. I spoke about stepping back and into "real time", which is a much tossed about and perhaps limited term that we've coined for offline life. What I feel is basically this: I like blogging - love blogging - but have outgrown...er (for want of a better word) this blog. Or the way I have been blogging...or something along those lines. Vague, me.

This blog began for reasons that are no longer relevant, and whereas once I felt liberated and secure blogging anonymously, (and it has been an absolute necessity for reasons you may find hard to believe, or which may make me appear utterly paranoid). Yet I now feel slightly inhibited and confined by that online persona. Funny isn't it how things can shift so dramatically?

Writing Witch by Paulina Cassidy.

Also, my antsy-ness towards this bloggy formatty thingie is to do with the fact that if I am sitting on my arse, then I am not running out in the fresh air, or crafting or reading a book, or drinking tequila, (erm...possibly a good thing non?). Much how I felt when I was Doing Academia. Not that I am a big outdoorsy camping type or anything. But I do get a bit like a caged mog when inside for any length of time. And blogging is a highly controlled and mediated format which is both a blessing and a curse. There is nothing like face-to-face spontaneous contact that is not so easily controlled, but is in the moment, and is dependent on a range of communication.

Added to that is a feeling that so much has changed, and I have been experiencing a "deepening" (to quote the lovely Mel), and the shedding of layers, the dropping of masks and old, out-dated survival strategies. And now things don't quite fit the way they once did. There is a dissonance when I turn up here, and I have been feeling irritable with my voice, (I hear a resounding "Oh - you're not the only one, she's always been an annoying pain in the botto that DW!"). In fact, have you ever experienced Blog Snubbing? heheeee...I have ; ) But that's straying from the point again, and has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

But...(please bear with me, me hearrrties!), I have found to my genuine surprise and delight, the most delicious community online, and there is no way I am turning away from that. It's just not the sort of thing that happens every day. Well, it doesn't. It's a rare and beautiful thing. So I have decided that my birthday present to myself will be either a new blog or a blog revamp. A clean bloggy slate. This space may end up getting locked and I'll start again, or I'll just re-do this one. And I may blog as myself rather than as Docwitch. *Looks bemused*. Although you may be shocked to discover that I do bear a striking resemblance to my profile image, although it is a little air-brushed. I'm a bit redder, and my tail is fluffier ; )

Dark Moon blessings to you all and a peaceful weekend.

*it's not always the case. Usually the dark moon energises me and I feel a surge towards creativity and productivity.