Confessions of a Pagan Nun : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable Historical Theme...
Review: This small book was a quick read, and gave an interesting look into what life might have been like in the times when druids and monks met on the same ground. I certainly enjoyed the perspective used by this author to bring the reader into the main character's descriptive memory.

The only reason I did not rate this book higher was due to it's predictable storyline. Everything that happens after one significant turning point with our heroine's mentor is obvious before it occurs. The ending is bittersweet, but again, unsurprising and blunt. The reader can wager a guess to the ending after the third or fourth chapter.

Still, all in all, a good book with heart. I'd recommend it, especially to anyone interested in the Celtic life of a woman in the early conversion times.

Rating:
Summary: A Rare Sort of Book
Review: When I first picked up this little book, I thought it was just another of many novels primarily targeted for Celtic history lovers - I was wrong. Although not particularly interested in Celtic history, I was attracted by its structure: a confession of a medieval nun writing clandestinely in a tiny hut in a dreary and desolate outpost of Christianity. How could her story be interesting? Hardly a standard romantic beach read. But her beginning prose had an alluring authenticity, so I bought the book. The book is just first rate literature period, for Celtic types or not. Who could not love this intelligent, wise, striving, heroically truth seeking yet humble Gwynneve? Just to come to know this creation is justification for the read. Gwynneve's confession makes a very moving story personalizing a tragic clash of civilizations that must have occurred. And there is a love story here too, not a conventional one, but one I think possesses that sterling quality of the "Whole Truth" by which Aldous Huxley meant to describe (in an essay on tragedy) an essential ingredient of great literature by which characters go about their lives in trying circumstances as real flesh and blood humans in fact do, with none of the concessions or clichés to appease the romantic reader. The confession's sad ending is nonetheless striking and darkly beautiful.