Language comes alive in Alice Kaplan, in her new book, "French Lessons."
The memoir traces the young child who gargled on her "r"s and who was attracted to the power of the French language as a student in Switzerland and later as "Madame Kaplan" who directs the fluid sound of the language which she had tried to master as a student.
Kaplan, a French professor at Duke University, explores her fascination and lust for the language that once felt so foreign.
French words - the rolled-"r"s, seductive sounds and quizzical intonation of questions - for her, become tangible much in the same way that writing did for Jean-Paul Sartre in his autobiography, "Words."
Throughout the book, Kaplan tells anecdotes of how French allows her to express herself and her inner feelings. Even in her sexual relationships, French manifests itself.
"This should have been my first clue that what I really wanted from Andre was languages, but in the short run all it did was make me feel more attached to him, without knowing why I was attached," she writes about one of her love affairs in France. "I can still hear the sound he made when he read my love letter: 'T,t,t' with that little ticking sound French people make by putting the tips of their tongues on the roof of their mouths."
Kaplan is always thinking, plotting and imagining. She never loses a thread in her attempts to mount the ever-complex French language so she can control it.
French begins to rule her life.
"I grew thinner and thinner. I ate French," Kaplan says.
"I bought tickets to Geneva, 'aller et retour a Geneve' - that is what you had to say to get a round trip ticket," she writes. "I loved to let it roll off my tongue, 'alleretretour' in one drum roll, 'to go and return.'"
Kaplan's writing is incredible - one can see that much thought and time was put into every word. The book flows with a melodic rhythm, weaving in and out between the language, her experiences and her observations.
Each of Kaplan's experiences has a little twist or a little humor. The reader learns along with the young girl studying at a private high school in Switzerland.
Kaplan speaks of Andre frequently - he becomes the manifestation of the language that surrounded her and, at times, frustrated her.
Andre becomes the teacher and she the student who trips over nuances. She tells the story of how Andre came home drunk and leant over her, whispered something in her ear in French and passed out.
Kaplan thought he said, "I am too strong." But a few days later, she realized he said, "I'm still drunk." Her story shows the determination - and even research - she does to understand and master the evasive language.
Kaplan tries to come to terms with poetic language and fascism in the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine's books.
"I love Celine for language and emotional directness I don't have," Kaplan writes. "But in the end - I always want to put a 'but' at the beginning of every sentence I write about him - he was paranoid; his reactions distorted the harsh realities he sensed so acutely, but couldn't tolerate."
In the lines of the chapter, the reader senses the struggle between word and ideas - that of fascism.
Kaplan changes though - the book is also about her attaining what she always wanted and struggled to have: a mastery of French.
Teaching, she writes, is not about her being right, "it's about generating words-other people's words."
Her schooling, her doctoral thesis and her experiences all add to a great adventure of her love of language and of French.
The book reads extremely easily and is filled not with cliches, but with a linguist's description of France and French. It is a cheerful story that makes you laugh at her faults and smile at the changes she undergoes.
Review copy courtesy of the Dartmouth Bookstore.
