Confessions of a Pagan Nun does not read like a medieval text, as the prose has a lot more life to it, and it definitely lacks in the depth of description that monks and nuns of the Middle Ages felt someone needed to know about, and yet the book certainly has a dryness and lethargy that some medieval texts have.
The result is a book that may well not be everyone’s cup of tea. What is interesting is the degree to which the author has gone to make the book seem like a real nun’s chronicle of her life as a former druid, to the extent that original Latin and Gaelic words are used, thankfully translated with footnotes, as well as a glossary providing aids to those who become lost.
The thesis of the novel is that the druidic religion was something special: “God forgive me, I do not wish to see the extinction of these old ways of knowing for I do believe that there is still value in acknowledging the spirit in a tree and understanding how to disarm an enemy with words.” Here is a lesson that everyone can learn from.
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Originally published on May 13th 2002.
Originally published in the Long Beach Union.
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