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The publishing world is in a tizzy over rising novelist's Kaavya Viswanathan's admission that she unintentionally copied passages from books by Megan McCafferty in order to write, How Opal Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, about an ambitious NJ teen who wants to get into Harvard. Viswanathan, just featured earlier in a rather glowing NY Times article about being a Harvard student with a $500,000 two-book deal at Little, Brown, was exposed by the Harvard Crimson over the weekend, and has now had to 'fess up. (Hats off to Harvard Crimson writer David Zhou for reading all three books over the weekend - check out examples of the similar passages, but really, hats off to the reader's tip-off started this.) McCafferty, a Columbia alum, whose two books about a smart NJ teen named Jessica Darling "inspired" Viswanathan to "internalize" prose, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, Gothamist has read and enjoyed, just hopes that that an agreement can be reached; no word on whether Viswanathan's admission and the fact that Little, Brown will not only remove/edit the similar passages but also acknowledge McCafferty is good enough (we're thinking there may have to be a payday). The Columbia Spectator weighs in and while it doesn't break any news, it has definitely found a great quote:
“I have read the McCafferty books and they are in that vein of unavoidable, awesomely bad, Y.A. chick lit that one usually ends up burning through on an idle Sunday evening or ten. They are good. But they are not worth plagiarizing,” Jennifer Bernstein, CC ’09, said. “Thank you, Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan, for this moment of pure schadenfreude.”Exactly - everyone needs a bit of schadenfreude to get through the day, but if we find out that Dr. Seuss didn't write and illustrate his books, we're going to be very, very angry.
Gothamist has been reading the latest McCafferty book about Jessica Darling, Charmed Thirds, which chronicles Jessica's experiences at Columbia (hello, Furnald!), interning at a magazine in Williamsburg, and trying to find love. It's better than awesomely bad in our estimation (good for when we should be spring cleaning), but it's no JT Leroy or James Frey either. And McCafferty was interviewed by the Spectator last week.
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Sorry for commenting on this blurb when what I really want to ask about is unrelated, but here goes.
Is the Peter Davis who is mentioned on Page Six today the same Peter Davis who studied literature at Bennington and graduated in 1994 -- just like Jared Paul Stern?
If this is the same Peter Davis who wrote for Paper Magazine, he is the same Peter Davis who went to school with Jared, which really gets you wondering about what was going in the literature department of Bennington in the mid-90s.
Hey Jen, do you normally use schadenfreude in oral communication? I'm talking about normal conversation with friends, not the poseur talk at a bar or lounge when you're trying to impress the hipsters you don't know.
I imagine this might threaten her place in Harvard.
Love the Excuse. "Internalize"? Um, Okkkkk....
haha...homeopt.. big ups!
anyhow, i don't see what all the hoopla is about. big deal, a few similar lines or paragraphs taken from some no name author. what does this all mean, that she is not "genuinely talented"?... gimme a break, this is chick lit after all.
Excusing plagarism because it takes place in a less-than-Nobel-Prize-winning category, such as chick lit is a slippery slope argument. What makes me unhappy is the attitude that "if I can get away with it and make half-a-mil, then it is acceptable." It's happening more and more...not just chick lit, but scholarly work, such as the recent admission by Doris Kearns Goodwin that she lifted paragraphs from other people's writing.
I feel bad for this young lady, but not too bad.
I'm not in publishing, but I am relatively confident her contract included stipulations that her work is her own. She should have paused at the moment she put pen to paper and recalled her
"internalization" of another's work.
Even more nefarious - was this planned? I mean after all the hoopla over Jim Frey's novel, that piece of crap is still on the best seller's list. Is this the new marketing tool for books? I for one have reverted to reading older classics. Who to trust?
So these are the types of books my wife has been reading all these years (before and after I knew her)....
I think the Harvard chick (yes I meant to write that) totally did a search and replace in Word...
Pretty sleazy...
I totally use schadenfreude - I saw Avenue Q!
wait this chick is smart enough to get into Harvard right? so she must know what plagiarism means. what the fuck is this "internalize"? If it walks like a duck.... and Jessica Darling is a pornstar.
I would be really surprised (and disappointed) if Harvard doesn't even make her "take time off" for pulling this shit. At my school, if you knowingly lie on your resume and career services sees it you are violating the honor code. I'm not sure what happens in this case, but I think that Harvard may need to step in for some "character building".
At least Oprah won't have to chew her out on national TV.
what pisses me off is she's like "I unconsciously did it tee hee". Yeah, right. How do you "unconsciously" copy many, many, many passages almost verbatim and then switch around the wording and cut and paste thesaurus similes? Total Fabrication. She knew what she was doing. This is a sham. that's why I only read the classics
homeopt... polysyllabics getting the better of you?
Of course she copied it. Duh. And now she's trying to cute her way through it, like Jim Frey tried to recovering victim his way through it. It will work about as well, especially in a market when you can just go to the next trashy book on the shelf.
word, famdoc, word. she got paid 500K for her supposed "talent". not to copy and paste. i can do that for god's sake.
the only good thing is that it makes me less envious of creative types since it seems now they aren't always that talented. they just steal work from other people. easy peasy.
From NYT: In a profile published in The New York Times earlier this month, Ms. Viswanathan said that while she was in high school, her parents hired Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise, a private counseling service, to help with the college application process. After reading some of Ms. Viswanathan's writing, Ms. Cohen put her in touch with the William Morris Agency, and Ms. Viswanathan eventually signed with Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, an agent there.
Maybe not smart enough to get into Harvard, just rich enough.
How about that cover? Looks almost exactly like the cover of another incredibly bad piece of chick lit, Jennifer Weiner's "Good In Bed".
"a few similar lines or paragraphs taken from some no name author"
McCafferty isn't exactly a "no name author"--her current book debuted at #19 on the NYT best seller list (before this controversy broke), and her first two books have sold over 300,000 copies, according to her publisher. makes you wonder how Viswanathan thought she could get away with it.
WHy do you complain about some one copying mere words,,Can she copy the feeling ??
All these books are without real feeling..
This is a poem i wrote ..when i saw some people copying life style itself.
*********************
Imitation
This World is copying itself
and yet cursing every otherself
Lost to the beauty of its own self;
twisting, torturing and copying life
we think we are all safe
yet mankind is full of strife
Imitation is the root cause of sorrow
Stagnancy finally for those who borrow;
I think Ms. Viswanathan's half-hearted admission of her actions is completely pathetic.
It is obvious to anyone who reads the passages from the two texts that she copied the precise phrasing, merely changing incidental details to make the work appear original.
I don't care how old she is, there is no excuse for plagarism and her response is indicative that she will never accept responsibility for her actions and or learn her lesson.
Anyone who buys that book is wasting their money. Her advance should be returned to the publisher and I would hope that any option she has with Dreamworks will lapse.
I work with writers who spend their entire lives trying to get a novel published or a screenplay produced. If she manages to achieve even a modicum of success after this, then that says precious little about the values in our society.
No, I only use schadenfreude when I'm feeling really gleeful about other people's misfortunes. Which is actually pretty often.
And actually that quote was from my blog, which is even more ridiculous.
This is all sickeningly similar to the Brad Vice story:
http://www.nypress.com/18/48/news&columns/RobertClarkYoung.cfm
He was ultimately denied tenure and fired.
Ah, who cares. Since when does this crap merit this much concern? Next we'll be tackling the controversey behind Harlequin's using Fabio's likeness on the cover of their latest Pathmark Special with only his expressed oral consent.
gggg,
what's with dismissing this? she was paid half a million dollars for a plagiarized novel!! wowzers! that advance has to come from somewhere. just because you're off chasing old copies of pynchon or trying to show off your bruised copy of an old mann tome, doesn't mean that people aren't buying chick lit far more often.
it's been a LONG time since superb writers have made good money from advances, and until then, the money is with plagiarizing chick lit writers.
columbia students are smart enough and pretentious enough to use schadenfreude without hipsters to impress
Hmmm...this could get a lot uglier:
http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9911
I hate to say this but this is SUCH blatant plagiarism that I hope Harvard drops her ass and she gets expelled. That goes against every Harvard code of honor/ethics there is. I'm impressed that Harvard reporter/student read all 3 books in a weekend and found all the like passages. He's wicked cool. She if full of sh%&!! She just wanted the money and finally to be something in her parents' very accomplished eyes since they had to pay her way into Harvard hiring a consultant and everything anyway. She is a hack and should be thrown out of Harvard. Plagiarism is AGAINST THE LAW for reasons; so you cannot steal other people's ideas!!! Megan McCafferty also better be compensated for that sh&*. Just ridiculous and pathetic.
schadenfreude= malicious
Schadenfreude is best used when rhymed, alliterated, or assonated with another obscure and/or foreign term. Difficult, but prudent. I'm just saying; best practice.
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