French Lessons: A Memoir

Kaplan ( Reproductions of Banality ), a teacher of French literature at Duke University, describes the impact of her preoccupation with the French language on her life. Initially, her passion for French culture provided her with a route out of her midwestern Jewish background. While studying in France, she was drawn to the work of Celine, the brilliant French novelist who was also a virulent anti-Semite. At Yale she wrote her dissertation on French fascist intellectuals; she discusses here the impact of the later discovery that her revered professor, the deconstructionist Paul de Man, had written for the pro-Nazi Belgian press. Since Kaplan's father was a judge at the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes trials, her intellectual investigation adds a unique personal component to this eloquent memoir. (Sept.)