First of all - it is a brilliantly written book. The story was
fascinating, the characters wonderfully developed -- a real
page-turner. As a story, I really liked it. I do, however, have two
concerns.
First concern is not cleft-related. Basically, Ms Diamont (the author)
did not remain historically accurate. Since she wrote a Bible story
from the perspective of another character, one would expect some
differences. And, since the story in the Bible takes about.. what?
six chapters or so.... and her book was about 300 pages, one would
expect some embellishment. And that's fine too. But in a lot of
places, she just plain changed the story -- which is not fine. Call me
a stickler on this one, but there were just too danged many out and out
departures from the actual Biblical account. My fear is that the Red
Tent will become the history to some, rather than the original account.
(We see this happen in literature all the time.)
But the part that interests this list is, in fact, my other issue. And
I DO take issue with it. All the time that I had not read the book, I
defended the use of the "H" word in this book. Now that i've read it, I
can't defend it any longer, and I will be writing to the author and
publisher.
She used the word Harelip four times. In the first, Rachel was jealous
of Leah for being pregnant first. She made the claim that Leah "was
probably impregnated by the half-witted harelip that hangs out at the
well." or something to that effect (I don't have the book beside me..
going from memory). Ok.. that one was totally uncalled for, and it
equates a cleft with total unacceptability.
Second time could be justified, to an extent. Rachel was learning to
become a midwife, and they told of many of the things that she'd seen,
including "a child born with a harelip, left out in the night to die."
Not pivotal to the story.. surely they could have said something like,
"a child born with a deformity...." or anything else... but for some
reason, she chose to zero in on clefts.
In the third instance, the Deborah who was attending Isaac in his old
age wore a veil. The comment was made that some thought that " she wore
the veil to hide a harelip." Again.. what is the purpose here? She
wore a veil that was custom for women in her position to wear.... so
there was no reason to bring in the "H" word at all.
Finally, when Dinah was in Egypt, she went to speak to someone and she
was afraid, so she bowed her head and hid her face "as though hiding a
harelip" when she spoke. Again... Dinah did not HAVE a cleft... so why
bring it in there at all? What was the purpose except to make us think
that others thought poorly of the main character at that point? And
were there better ways of saying it, without once again using a cleft to
connote something totally unacceptable?
While most of the time, clefts went un-repaired those many centuries
ago, it is not accurate to say that the lip was not fixed. It often
was. Plastic surgery began centuries before this. It was not overly
successful, and they didn't fix the palate, and I am convinced that the
scars left after repair were pretty disfiguring, but surely there are
other ways of calling something repugnant in her book.
Finally -- I just hate it when an author does not do her research. When
asked why she used this term in her book, her response was "because
that's what they called it back then." That's about as wrong as you can
get! The term was coined in France in the 16th century. This story
happened during the time of Ramses -- who ruled during the new kingdom
in Egypt... about 1300 BC or so. The lady was off by around 28
centuries! Were people born with clefts back then? Yes, of course.
Were they ostrasized? Yes... and they still are.. often openly .. in
parts of the world today. However, to use a term that didn't even come
into use for another three millenia simply brings the insult into
today. Should she have called it a "lip that is split", or "a mouth
deformity".. or any other thing they could have called it back then, I
would have been more tolerant... but her choice of using a word out of
historical context tells me that she either didn't do ANY research (a
simple websearch on the word would have brought up the wide smiles site
and our document on the history of the term) or that she wanted the
impact of a hurtful word. Either way, I find it difficult to tolerate.