FRENCH LESSONS: A Memoir by Alice...

FRENCH LESSONS: A Memoir by Alice Kaplan (University of Chicago Press: $9.95; 232 pp.). In her thoughtful autobiography, Kaplan recalls the role studying French played in her life: “French got me away from my family and taught me how to talk. Made me an adult. And the whole drama of it is in that ‘r,’ how deep in my throat, how different it feels.” The most entertaining chapters describe her adolescent attraction to the sophistication the language seemed to bestow. Her later interest in the odious Fascist authors of the early ‘40s enabled her to come to grips with the legacy of her father, who had served as a prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials.