{"id":131,"date":"2006-04-27T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-27T11:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=131"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:39:49","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:39:49","slug":"a-cambridge-copycat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"A Cambridge Copycat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>If my last post<\/a> wasn’t fully convincing, let me offer up another good reason why publishing the Great American Novel might not be all it’s cracked up to be.<\/p>\n

Kaavya Viswanathan.<\/p>\n

Kaavya is a 19-year-old sophomore at Harvard and author of the latest entry into the skyrocketing literary genre know as “chic-lit.” Her book, entitled “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life<\/a>,” focuses on a high school senior named Opal Mehta and her frantic attempts to get accepted into the school of her dreams and destiny–Harvard, naturally. It was properly feted in the New York Times <\/a>when it debuted earlier this month, and all seemed well for the Harvard coed who was celebrating a six figure, two book deal and a DreamWorks movie contract.<\/p>\n

Since that time, however, allegations by the Harvard Crimson that Ms. Viswanathan “borrowed” key ideas and phrases<\/a> from two other previously published books, “Second Helpings”<\/a> and “Sloppy Firsts”<\/a> by Megan McCafferty, have shown up and crashed the party. Although she at first dodged the question, Ms. Viswanathan has since acknowledged that she inadvertantly “internalized”<\/a> passages from the the books in question and used them in her latest work. She has issued an apology<\/a> to Ms. McCafferty and her publisher, but apparently the apology was not accepted. Some of the disputed passages can be seen here.<\/a><\/p>\n

It does not appear at first glance that Ms. Viswanathan’s alleged indiscretions are of the same magnitude as James Frey’s.<\/a> She did, after all, produce a more or less original story and properly marketed her work as fiction rather than passing it off as a memoir.<\/p>\n

However, this latest literary brouhaha does bring to light how difficult it may be to craft a truely “original” story and how easy it has become, given the rapid expansion of information via the internet and almighty Google, to spot potential plagiarism.<\/p>\n

I’m wondering how many pleasing phrases I may have “inadvertantly” lifted from other sources over the years and used in my own writings. I’m also curious as to what you think about Ms. Viswanathan’s explanation. Is it possible to “internalize” and unwittingly use that many seemingly parallel passages, or is it more likely that Ms. Viswanathan is a “Cambridge Copycat” and had the works in question sitting in front of her as she wrote her own book?<\/p>\n

Oh well, like I said, it all seems like another cautionary tale writ large across the American cultural landscape. The moral of the story? Stick to the blog–nobody ever reads it anyway.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow: The much anticipated (heh) Part III of my series, “Blogging–The Wonder Years.” You don’t want to get miss it and get “caught short.”<\/p>\n

—————————————————————————<\/p>\n

Update 4\/28\/06<\/p>\n

Little, Brown and Company, the publisher of Ms. Viswanathan’s book, has pulled the disputed novel<\/a> from store shelves and retailers until the plagiarized passages can be excised and revised. Megan McCafferty states that she is “not seeking restitution in any form” and hopes that both she and Ms. Viswanathan can put the incident behind them and move on in their careers.<\/p>\n

Not a bad resolution–no nasty lawsuit, Ms. McCafferty’s work and name remain intact (and her compassion to a young emerging writer will not doubt help her reputation), and Ms. Viswanathan learns the kind of lesson that they don’t teach at Harvard these days. Doris Kearns Goodwin seems to have recovered quite nicely, so chances are she will too.<\/p>\n

Coming soon, the memoir: “How Kaavya Viswanathan Got Caught, Got Wise and Got a Lesson.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If my last post wasn’t fully convincing, let me offer up another good reason why publishing the Great American Novel might not be all it’s cracked up to be. Kaavya Viswanathan. Kaavya is a 19-year-old sophomore…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,24,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-culture","category-current-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9707,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/9707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}