Confessions Of A Pagan Nun: Novel, A

Description:
When we think of the Dark Ages, we often think of a dim, primitive society where people struggled just to stay alive, with no room for spirituality or philosophy. The cool, clear, gemlike precision of Horsley's (Crazy Woman) new novel tells another tale.

Gwynneve is born into a world suspended between paganism and Christianity: Ireland circa 500 C.E. While the rest of Europe was well on its way toward Christianity, at this time Ireland remained much closer to its pagan traditions. After losing her mother, Gwynneve trains as a druid and practices as one for many years. By the time she sets her story down, though, she has converted to Christianity and become a nun. The book is written as a memoir detailing her journey from her birth into a pagan tribe to her end as a Christian with near-saintly status. Her story is not just that of a strong woman making her way in a hostile world. It is also the story of what happens to a country when a new religion takes the place of the old. A beautifully written and thought-provoking book; recommended for all fiction collections.

This brief but vivid novel presents itself as a recently discovered manuscript composed by 1 of the 19 nuns of Saint Bridget in Kildare, at the dawning of Ireland's Christian era. Gwynneve was a druid before the tonsured clerics began to convert her people, offering them new technologies in exchange for conversions. When her druidic teacher and lover, Giannon, is kidnapped, apparently by followers of the new god, Gwynneve falls into despair that is lifted only when she hears of a community that keeps the old Celtic ways under the guise of Christian ritual. In it, she is set to a task that suits her perfectly: copying manuscripts of the church fathers, especially Augustine, with whom she has a running intellectual battle. As she records her life's story, she also relates the melodramatic doings of her convent, which include the abbot's fall from chastity and later self-mutilation. Poetically written and marvelously researched, the novel offers complex theological arguments wrapped in a compelling story about memorable characters.