Plagiarism charges: Who is really responsible?
Kaavya Viswanathan, 18-year-old Harvard student and author of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, has been accused of plagiarism: borrowing as many as 45 passages from Megan McCafferty's novels Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. This story from the New York Times explains the basics.
Kaavya has apologized over and over in the media. But is she really responsible? The idea has surfaced that perhaps she isn't, and that instead the fault lies in how the book was published - through "book packager" Alloy Entertainment. Read this editorial by Rachel Pine for more on that theory. Perhaps someone else should be doing the apologizing ...
There's another compelling piece in Slate magazine.
posted by Ian @ 10:40 AM
8 Comments:
Looks like they have pulled the book off the shelves. So I guess that means we won't be getting it at the library either.
Actually, the library already owns at least six copies of the book. They're all currently checked out.
Interesting scandal. Thanks for sharing Ian. Something to ponder...
Ultimately, SHE is responsible. Unintentional plagiarism is still plagiarism. Just ask George Harrison's estate and lawyers.
I read the editorial piece linked in the text, but it seems to me that an author would remember which passages she herself wrote and which were edited/rewritten by copy editors. Then again, maybe I'm wrong.
More news: there are passages lifted from other books as well, notably Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries (or a sequel, not sure which). In the absence of anything more than "Gee, I'm so sorry!" - e.g. "I didn't write that" - from Kaavya herself, it's becoming harder and harder to give her the benefit of the doubt.
Meg Cabot's post on how she feels about it.
It's a shame really. I read Opal Mehta, and, if it weren't for the plagiarized parts, it would have been a really good book!
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