{"id":161813,"date":"2022-09-30T11:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T15:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=161813"},"modified":"2022-10-03T15:22:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-03T19:22:25","slug":"nancy-lemann-recommends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2022\/09\/30\/nancy-lemann-recommends\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy Lemann Recommends The Palace Papers<\/em> and Loyola\u2019s Spiritual Exercises<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Saint Ignatius of Loyola Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Photograph by Nheyob, via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n

In my hometown of New Orleans, which is overwhelmingly Catholic, certain men I know go periodically to a Catholic retreat up the river. They go there to repent. Probably they contemplate goodness. And goodness is a lot more interesting than it sounds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola<\/span><\/i><\/a> are used as the format for these pursuits. Saint Ignatius of Loyola was a womanizer, purportedly\u2014like a lot of the saints. So probably he wanted to repent, too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My friends growing up in New Orleans were all Catholic girls, and I\u2019ve often wondered about their Catholic qualities. They seem to have less vinegar in their veins than Jewish girls (like me). It fascinates me to delineate the character traits informed by their religion. I\u2019m drawn to its organized tenets. I\u2019d read the Catholic catechism just for kicks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t have to be Catholic to appreciate Loyola\u2019s <\/span>Spiritual Exercises<\/span><\/i>. They are a set of prayers and practices divided into tantalizing rubrics such as Three Classes of Men, Three Kinds of Humility, Rules for the Discernment of Spirits, Daily Examination of Conscience, etc. Their goals are constructive: to overcome disordered inclinations; to seek indifference and humility; to elicit courage, discipline, and perseverance. Just take Jesus out of it and there you go. I took Jesus out of all those phrases, which would otherwise include the strange concept that you\u2019re doing all this for his sake\u2014rather than for your own sake, just to be more worthy. I don\u2019t know why you need Jesus to aspire to this quest. So it\u2019s not like I\u2019m some sort of religious maniac.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The<\/span> Spiritual Exercises<\/span><\/i>\u00a0can get a little weird, though they still speak to me: you\u2019re supposed to ask for shame and confusion. So if you feel shame and confusion, don\u2019t worry, you\u2019re on the right track! Because it\u2019s about remorse\u2014when you know you are bad, it is good. It is half the battle won.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also revel in <\/span>The Palace Papers<\/span><\/i><\/a> by Tina Brown, with its effortless intelligence and command of a wide array of royal facts and concepts, even when at the end Brown suddenly descends into bathos about Queen Elizabeth, as people sometimes tend to do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But I read that book before the queen\u2019s death, so I must now add prescience to Brown\u2019s powers of discernment\u2014the emotional conclusion, the sudden eulogy\u2014though I guess you didn\u2019t have to be a genius to realize the queen was on her last legs. She seemed immortal, though. Like one\u2019s mother, sort of.<\/span><\/p>\n

A few days before she died, I had bought the latest issue of <\/span>Tatler<\/span><\/i>, which was entirely devoted to the queen, with quaint, sepia-tinted photos telling her life story, etc. I kept thinking, <\/span>Why did I buy this<\/span>, and\/or, <\/span>Do I have to keep reading this<\/span>. But something kept me from throwing it away, for which, afterward, I was glad.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nancy Lemann is the author of \u201cDiary of Remorse<\/a>,\u201d published in the <\/em>Review‘s new Fall issue, no. 241.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGoodness is a lot more interesting than it sounds.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2287,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68386],"tags":[67827,68523,34787,2541,22037,68308,68542],"class_list":["post-161813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-reviews-review","tag-featured","tag-issue-241","tag-nancy-lemann","tag-new-orleans","tag-queen-elizabeth-ii","tag-reviews-review","tag-st-ignatius-of-loyola"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNancy Lemann Recommends The Palace Papers and Loyola\u2019s Spiritual Exercises by Nancy Lemann<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"September 30, 2022 \u2013 \u201cGoodness is a lot more interesting than it sounds.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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