Confessions- Review

     So I've been reading Confessions of a Pagan Nun by Kate Horsley. It's about a woman named Gwynneve who lives in sixth-century Ireland. She started out living a Celtic pagan life, but throughout the story she explains that at present time she is a Christian nun.

     I find it to be a very good book so far. It touches on many social issues from that time and gives great insight on what the people of today consider 'minor' historical events. But that's not what really interests me about the book. Gwynneve talks a lot about her ability to write and read, something that she says very few people know how to do other than druids and important religious figures. She says that words are equal to freedom, and when a man or woman has words, he will always be free.

"Even a man in a cage can speak words, or if his tongue be cut, hear them, or if his ears be filled with dirt, have them in his mind. In words he is free at least until he dies, and I do not know, nor did my mother, if a man has words after he is dead, other than what he has left behind in his writing, if he were literate," (Page 9, Paragraph 2).

She goes on to say that being able to write and read is like some sort of magical thing that she finds positively amazing. This written freedom comes up a lot, as the only reason why the story exists is because she was writing it down in between the translating of the bible.

    It's actually fairly inspiring. Words really are freedom, because they're the only thing that people can't take from you, the only thing that people can't completely control. Unless you let them, and that's you taking your own freedom away.

     I really like this book so far. :)