Having been an author for umpteen years, I suppose nothing should surprise me about the venality of publishers, but somehow the recent behavior of Little, Brown – once an outfit with a classy reputation – leaves me scratching my head. As many of you know, they are printing a new edition of ” teenage Harvard sensation” Kaavya Viswanathan’s first novel “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” with the several dozen “similarities” to (read: plagiarisms from) Megan McCafferty’s books excised and an “apology” to Ms. McCafferty appended.
According to Robin Abcarian in the LAT, Steve Ross of Crown (McCafferty’s publisher) is taking the proper attitude:
When Steve Ross, publisher and senior vice president of Crown Publishers and Three Rivers Press, learned that a first-time teenage novelist might have borrowed a few passages from the works of one of his own authors, Megan McCafferty, his first instinct was to consider it “a youthful indiscretion.”After all, the alleged transgressor, Kaavya Viswanathan, a 19-year-old Harvard sophomore, was being heralded as a kind of literary prodigy, a kid with a voice who’d scored a two-book deal worth close to $500,000 while still in high school. Who’d want to squelch that?
But as Ross’ staffers compared the newcomer’s novel, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life,” with two of McCafferty’s novels, he became alarmed and then angry when they turned up 40 passages in “Opal Mehta” that seemed borrowed or lifted directly from McCafferty’s two popular young adult novels, “Sloppy Firsts” and “Second Helpings.”
“This is literary identity theft,” Ross said Tuesday. McCafferty, he said, “feels that something fundamental was taken from her.”
Viswanathan’s Boston-area phone number was disconnected, but through her publisher, Little, Brown & Co., she apologized Monday in a written statement, saying she had made an unintentional mistake.
Forty unintentional mistakes?! How’s this for a new cliché? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on Little Brown for being such blatant liars. Meanwhile, how will Harvard react? I imagine this kind of plagiarism on one of Ms. Viswanathan’s sophomore papers would get her kicked out of the institution. All writers’ organizations (Author’s Guild, PEN, WGA, etc.) should also be appalled and behave accordingly.
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17 Comments
1. Kevin Peters:Roger:
Apr 26, 2006 - 9:56 am 2. Godzilla:19 year old kids do make mistakes. I have made many mistakes and even though I am in my forties I still make mistakes.. Adults with integrity make amends. Pull the new edition.Pull all unsold copies of the book. If they want to still put the book out go ahead and do it. On page 2 of the new editions print out a sincere and complete apology. Every part of the novel that was lifted from McCafferty should be highlighted in a different font and footnoted. And 50% of the books profits should be given to McCafferty. Don”t make McCafferty go to court to get justice. If they do this future “sensations” might hesitate to repeat her mistake.
This whole thing is creepy, on more than one level. Chick-lit itself is creepy. I belong to a Women’s Studies Academic List (it’s an open list, and I was curious as to what is being taught these days in Women’s Studies curriculums), and the subject of Chick-Lit came up and it was despaired. Just to see what Chick-Lit, actually, I then read The Clique, by Lisi Harrison, which is the first of a very popular series about a group of extremely superficial girls). Well, if you want to know what teenage girls are reading these days, I’ll tell it’s not on the line of Black Beauty! There were enough exerpts from the plagiarism examples on line to put Viswanathan’s book in the same category.
Personally, I’m glad that Crown Publishers, Three Rivers Press, Ross, and Mcafferty are beginning to see this for what it is. It should not be condoned or euphemised. Plagiarism is a stock evil in writing, a metaphysical rape that is trully despicable.
Apr 26, 2006 - 10:31 am 3. ic:“how will Harvard react?” How? Their constitutional law professor whose name I forgot, did that; Doris Kern Goodwin did that; Ambrose did that. So “how will Harvard react?” Nothing. The kid is just learning from the masters.
Apr 26, 2006 - 10:41 am 4. tim maguire:I’m having a hard time getting to exercised about this.
First, she’s 19. There is no such thing as a literary prodigy (except maybe Mary Shelley). She hasn’t lived enough to write 250 pages of original work.
Second, this is chick lit. It’s one those genres where there’s really only one book. All the authors do is change the names and dates and rerelease it.
Third, the title is “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life.” Did anybody expect originality from a title like that?
I suppose I’m condoning plagiarism and that doesn’t sit right, but come on! Add it all up and did Little Brown expect anything different?
She apologized immediately, they’re taking steps to make it right. Harvard can do what Harvard will do, and maybe next time this “prodigy” will wait until she has something to write to write, instead of trying to give her parents bragging rights at the neighborhood picnic.
Apr 26, 2006 - 11:59 am 5. Roger:“There is no such thing as a literary prodigy.”
One word: Rimbaud
Apr 26, 2006 - 12:02 pm 6. tim maguire:Alright, fine. But they’re not common and you and me both had to go back a ways to find even those two.
Apr 26, 2006 - 2:35 pm 7. Khazarkhum:Does Goethe count as a literary prodigy?
Secondly, this sort of hack writing hardly qualifies as “profound”.
If there were any justice in the world, LB would rescind her advance and pay out more to the genre authors whose works keep the publishing world afloat.
Apr 26, 2006 - 2:50 pm 8. maria horvath:Perhaps the plagiarism isn’t all her fault. This paragraph at the conclusion of an article in today’s Boston Globe seems to hint that she may have had help, enough to have to share the copyright.
“Viswanathan’s novel has received a lot of attention since arriving in stores this month, partly because of the size of the contract for a writer so young — she was 17 when she got it — but also for the role a book packager played in developing the plot. Alloy Entertainment, which shares the copyright for ‘Opal Mehta,’ says it helped the author conceptualize the book but did not help with the actual writing.”
Apr 26, 2006 - 3:50 pm 9. A.M. Mora y Leon:Is it just me or am I right to be just as creeped out by the ‘book packaging’ rackets that are going on in the publishing industry? What ever happened to original work? The publishers keep whipping out these supposed ethnic ’sensations’ chosen for their skin color with half million dollar book deals. Then, they promote them before they are really ready to meet those sales goals for those demographic groups whose cash they want. Net result: mediocre rubbish that would never see print in any other era.
The pressure is too much for these meritless chosen writers so it’s not surprising that they go haywire and end up as phony and exposed as Jayson Blair at times. It happened to Jayson, now it happened to this person. It will happen again and the same outline of conditions will be right there.
I see it as the logical result of a hoity toity intolerant white liberal publishing establishment that is so desperate to be politically correct, yet looks into the bridge and tunnel ‘Ethnicworld’ so infrequently that it can’t tell talent from nontalent. It’s as if they are only looking for someone to use as a front person for their demographic marketing focus groups to sell books to.
End result: This person they scooped up had no character, could not write, and bit them.
Apr 26, 2006 - 6:33 pm 10. Godzilla:A.M. Your question is not easy to answer, or more likely that there are too many answers. As far as the Chick Lit, goes, when I was of a comparable age, I was into Edgar Rice Burroughs. I read all of this books twice. I can remember getting into the Hardy Boys a little, but not as much. Then I gravitated into Stephen King and the odd book here or there that seemed interesting. I did read all the classics (well, most of them).
The problem is, what exactly should we read, what should we expect out of it, are we getting anything out of it?
The answers here again will be individualzied.
These Chick Lit books are selling zillions of copies. I read The Clique, which is one of them, just to see what the genre was all about. Well, either I picked the screwiest book of the bunch, or I just expect too much out of a book, at least much much more than what that one gave…which was some kind of homage to materialism, deceit, boy-worship, ehh, just garbage, and the moral, or theme, if you could call it a theme was that it was good to get into the clique.
When I was in my Edgar Rice Burroughs/Stephen King days, I was after good vesus evil, I suppose, because that’s really what the themes of those books are, and the good wins.
The problem is, that as you get older, good versus evil themes began to be insufficient. However, what is there left to turn to? I’m not into Naturalism and most writers are naturalistic writers today…literary photographers, no real theme, just a set of plot events, with an ending, and it could have happened to anyone, ala fate, and what’s the point of reading that, either? That’s where I’m at. I’ve had to go back in time, back to the Romantics.
I agree with you, however, that there is a problem. It’s a multi-headed hydra, though, not just one beast that is responsible for the hoary blast of books hitting the shelves. There is a maliaise that is hanging over this country like a cloud, and it throwing shadows on not just books.
Apr 26, 2006 - 7:30 pm 11. mythusmage:“Having been an author for umpteen years, I suppose nothing should surprise me about the venality of publishers…”
Roger, have Moses Wine move to a station orbiting Tau Ceti and you could have your books published by Baen. Or collaborate with Eric Flint on a 21st century private detective in the 1632 universe Magdeburg of 1635. (Info at Baen.)
Depends on who you work with.
Apr 26, 2006 - 8:39 pm 12. TomTom:I’m a bit surprised that you, Roger, don’t marvel more about how a 17 year-old girl could 1) write well enough, 2) find a good agent to accept her, and 3) garner the princely sum of $500K—knowing the trade as you do.
Apr 26, 2006 - 9:28 pm 13. A.M. Mora y Leon:Further, I suspect that her name-Vismanathan- her pigment, and her book deal were her keys to Harvard admission. So the manifest plagiarism likely contaminates her Harvard application.
Maybe Yale had her in mind as their “loss” to Harvard, prompting their admission of Taliban Man.
Interesting thoughts, Godzilla. We didn’t have Chick Lit when I was young either. The genre strikes me as like a venal, loud TV show entertainment, complete with advertisements for overpriced merchandise, all in written book form. That said, surely some of them ought to be good. I just don’t know any. I am trying to think of what I read when I was a teenager … it was mostly 19th century Russian novels. When I was very young, like around 12, it was historic romance novels, like Gone With The Wind. Younger still, it was Judy Blume novels. At the end of my teens it was anything by Tom Wolfe. I now wonder what the effect of them was on who I became.
Apr 26, 2006 - 9:56 pm 14. Godzilla:“I now wonder what the effect of them was on who I became.”
Yikes, I could run off at the mouth for hours on that subject! You’ve hit the essence of the question, concerning books.
I look for books that have themes that I’m interested in. I guess everyone does that, so there’s no revelation there. Specifically, then, I look for books that have universals for their themes. Conflicts and events which cause the hero/heroines to struggle through obstacle after obstacle, with philosophic and moral overtones.
The kind of books you read say alot about you, as well as the kind of books that you don’t read.
As readers, I think we all go through an individual stage of development. To really know what to read, we really need to know ourselves. It’s very easy to get lulled into a book that looks interesting because it is trussed up with nice looking words, and miss the fact that it is still a turkey, nevertheless.
One thing I can flat out say is that I do not like naturalistic writing. For example, take Anna Karenina. I got through about 20 pages, and said that’s it, no more. Perfect sentences, Tolstoy (through the translator) was saying everything that he wanted to say…which was nothing.
Each book that you put down can be another revelation on what it is that you do and do not like.
John Irving is another naturalist. Good correct sentences, a series of plot events, an ending and a resolution – and you learn nothing. I didn’t make this realization until I had finished the only book of his that I’ll ever read – A Widow For One Year.
I also read for a purpose. I intend to write a book myself one day, and so I’m getting very very critical.
Gone With The Wind is a wonderful historical romance – with a theme, and a promising ending.
Victor Hugo is good too.
Apr 26, 2006 - 11:05 pm 15. submandave:We have so far been successful in steering our 7-year-old bookworm to more clasic children’s literature (E.B. White, C.S. Lewis, The Boxcar Children mysteries, etc.). It is my goal that early exposure to quality material will whet her appetite to the point that mindless drivel, such as The Clique has been portrayed, will hold little interest for her.
While I don’t doubt the young lady’s lucrative contract was certainly penned with the idea of expanding LB’s market in a specific demographic, I don’t get the sense that her ethicity is a factor in either the allegations or in LB’s less than severe handling of them. Rather, I see it as indicative of the glut for this sort of fare and the relative assessment o fits intrinsic literary value that the “plagiarism” wasn’t caught by LB in the editing process and hasn’t resulted in the complete withdrawal of the product. As to the charges themselves, it would b einformative to see some of the 40 specific examples to gage the similarities. While plagiarism is manifested as an overt and intentional action to deceive, there has always been a tendency for young artists in any creative endeavor to at time be a bit too derivative. This may be more the dynamic at play here than intentional theft.
And, yes Godzilla, anyone who eschews the unabridged Hugo to simply get to the plot more quickly looses the greater part of his brilliance.
Apr 27, 2006 - 9:48 am 16. Godzilla:submandave,
This article has some examples of the plagiarism. The structure of the sentences are nearly identical.
Apr 27, 2006 - 7:23 pm 17. yes:I as a mom and as writer am very concerned about K.A. because she is so young.
I am as against plagirism as anyone.
But I hope there is someone at Little, Brown to comfort this gal. She has a LOT on her plate and I’m sure she is feeling terrible and vulnerable.
I couldn’t find her e-mail but please convey to her that all the journalism against her could make her decide to never write again. This was only a first book, and even the plagarism is done by such a younster. I think you guys should give her a lot of TLC and re-issue her book once those passages are taken away.
You don’t want someone who ends up either in a mental hospital or committing suicide. What she did should not define who she is and please pass this onto her. I really feel she should get a second break. Surely, she won’t copy other’s work after all this, thanks for listening. I worry about her. don’t you?
Apr 29, 2006 - 9:03 am