French Lessons: A Memoir (26 page)

Learning French did me some harm by giving me a place
to hide. It's not as if there's a straightforward American self
lurking under a devious French one, waiting to come out
and be authentic. That's nostalgia-or fiction. French isn't
just a metaphor, either-it's a skill. It buys my groceries and
pays the mortgage. I'm grateful to French, beyond these material gains, for teaching me that there is more than one way
to speak, for giving me a role, for being the home I've made
from my own will and my own imagination.

All my life, I've used and abused my gift for language. I'm
tempted, down to the last page, to wrap things up too neatly
in words.

June 1987-September 1992

In this memoir, I've changed names and slightly altered
circumstances of some people and places.

All English translations of Celine are by Ralph Manheim
(New Directions Publishers), with the exception of the passage from Rigadoon, which I have revised.

The excerpt from Gertrude Stein's Paris France is reprinted
with the permission of the Estate of Gertrude Stein. The excerpt from Linda Orr's A Certain X is reprinted with the permission of L'Epervier Press.

I began working on French Lessons in a writing group that
has been meeting since spring 1987 in Durham, Chapel Hill,
and Cedar Grove, North Carolina. My thanks go first and
foremost to the members of that group-Cathy N. Davidson, Jane Tompkins, and Marianna Torgovnick-for their
insight and their support, and for their constant challenge:
the challenge to communicate outside the ordinary codes
of academic language, and to write with feeling.

Crucial financial and material support for my writing
came in the form of a Mellon grant at the National Humanities Center during the academic year 1989-90.

For help, inspiration, advice, and encouragement, I am indebted to Amy Allen, Louise Antony, Angelika Bammer, R.
Howard Bloch, Anne-Marie Bryan, Tom Clark, Virginia
Daley, Lore Dickstein, Morris Dickstein, Spence Foscue, Vivian Foushee, Diana Gilligan, Henri Godard, Janine S. Godard, Valerie Golden, Carolyn Heilbrun, Marianne Hirsch,
Denis Hollier, Elizabeth Houlding, Barbara Keyworth, Paula
Krist, Lawrence D. Kritzman, Charles Kronberg, Carlton Lake,
Gayle Levy, R. W. B. Lewis, Catherine Maggio, Greil Marcus, Kent Mullikin, Jean O'Barr, Nicholas Raphael, Joseph Rio,
Juliette Rogers, Andy Rowland, Chuck Sanislow, Naomi
Schor, Ann Smock, the Solstice Assembly (especially our director, Jane Peppler, and the "alto-mobile": Rivka Gordon,
Candace Carraway, and Laurie Fox), Margaret Spires, Joan
Stewart, Deborah Swain, Jean Jacques Thomas, Clare Tufts,
Barbara Vance, Phil Watts, Susan Weiner, Martha Williams,
Carter Wilson.

I wish that Carol Boren Owens were alive to see this book
in print.

I am grateful to the Duke students in my 1987 and 1991
graduate and undergraduate seminars on autobiography
and to the members of the 1988 Duke-in-Paris summer
program-especially Sherri Braden and Jerry Marsini.

Rachel Brownstein, Michele Farrell, R. W. B. Lewis,
Nancy K. Miller, Kristin Ross, Philippe Roussin, and my editor, Alan Thomas, read the entire manuscript at different
stages. I benefited enormously from their comments. Laurel Goldman's critical reading of the penultimate draft was
invaluable.

Team-teaching with Linda On since 1986, on World War
II, on war and memory, and on first-person narrative, has informed my thinking and enriched my work in every way.
Without our conversations, this book could never have
been written.

In Minnesota, my mother, Leonore Yaeger Kaplan, responded to my questions with courage, generosity, and
questions of her own. Thank you to my brother, Mark Kaplan, especially for sending me his short story, "Bike Trip to
Wildhurst" (i 99o); to my uncle, Sheldon Kaplan, and to my
cousins, Ann Phillips and Felix Phillips, for their hospitality.

Special thanks go to my sister, Hattie Jutagir, for her honesty; her story of our family is different.

To Terry Vance, a teacher in the deepest sense, my
gratitude.

French Lessons is dedicated with love and thanks to David
Auerbach.

Alice Kaplan was educated at Berkeley and Yale, and teaches
French Literature at Duke University. Her books include

Reproductions of Banality: Fascism, Literature, and French Intellectual
Life.