Many of you have already picked up on the story broken by the Harvard Crimson on Sunday. It appears VERY likely that young author Kaavya Viswanathan is a cheat. Her newly released novel, part of a lucrative two-book deal, has several passages that are almost identical to a 2001 novel that examined similar adolescent themes:
A recently-published novel by Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan ’08, “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” contains several passages that are strikingly similar to two books by Megan F. McCafferty–the 2001 novel “Sloppy Firsts” and the 2003 novel “Second Helpings.”
At one point, “Opal Mehta” contains a 14-word passage that appears verbatim in McCafferty’s book “Sloppy Firsts.”
Reached on her cell phone Saturday night, Viswanathan said, “No comment. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
McCafferty, the author of three novels and a former editor at the magazine Cosmopolitan, wrote in an e-mail to The Crimson Saturday night: “I’m already aware of this situation, and so is my publisher…” [Link]
Normally I would be skeptical until I heard more about this, but the Crimson has just broken it down to the point where you know how this is all going to end. Her literary career is over. If I were her I would think about falling back on medical school or something real quick. I was thrilled to see a teenage girl that could still write and didn’t use “u” instead of “you,” or “r” instead of “are.” My hopes for the next generation are now completely dashed. Here are just two of the numerous examples of apparent plagiarism cited by the Crimson:
From page 217 of McCafferty’s first novel: “But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and said something so random that I was afraid he was back on the junk.”
From page 142 of Viswanathan’s novel: “…he tapped me on the shoulder and said something so random I worried that he needed more expert counseling than I could provide…”From page 237 of McCafferty’s first novel: “Finally, four major department stores and 170 specialty shops later, we were done.”
From page 51 of Viswanathan’s novel: “Five department stores, and 170 specialty shops later, I was sick of listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys……” [Link]
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Reading the Crimson article inspired me to do some investigative blogging of my own and has led me to a fantastic discovery which I would like to reveal first to SM readers (an then later to the world press). Aided by SM staff I have found striking similarities between the novel “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” and the 1982 book Holy Blood, Holy Grail by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. For example, if you take the name of the main character, “Opal Mehta,” and you rearrange the letters, it gives you the following phrase:
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p>I think somewhere in Holy Blood, Holy Grail they mention that “a pale moth” is one of the symbols associated with the female divinity, a symbol that was suppressed in the 6th century by the papacy. On a previous post we all wondered why the title character would be named “Opal Mehta” of all things. It makes sense to me now.
Furthermore, I have reason to believe that Kaavya Viswanathan may not even be her real name. Rearranging the letters in her name gives you:
Roughly translated this seems to mean that Satan stays away from wherever the Ankh is displayed (the ankh being an ancient symbol that some believe is the precursor to the Christian cross). This again is a theme that Baigent and Leigh discuss in their non-fiction book. Before the Harvard Crimson article I would have just thought that “maybe this is all a coincidence,” and this really is just a book about a teenage girl that she created from her imagination. I am sure that you all agree in light of the evidence that I have just laid out that this is highly unlikely. This girl simply has no conscience.
See related posts: How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and…, The narcissist principle
Surely the linguistics of pronunciation and accents, not to mention the relationship between names and individual identities, are more complicated than this. Do you know Laxmi Singh? Has she told you that she’s trying to “accommodate others”? Didn’t think so.
I don’t know if MarkD is around or not, but Asian Indians are Caucasians. Anthropologically speaking, that’s all.
From Wikipedia:
The question of a difference between the “Caucasian race” and “white” as a racial category in the United States has led to at least one set of major legal contradictions in the United States Supreme Court. In the case of Ozawa v. United States (1922), the court ruled that a law which extended U.S. citizenship only to “whites” did not apply to fair-skinned people from Japan, because:
The term “white person”, as used in [the law], and in all the earlier naturalization laws, beginning in 1790, applies to such persons as were known in this country as “white,” in the racial sense, when it was first adopted, and is confined to persons of the Caucasian Race… A Japanese, born in Japan, being clearly not a Caucasian, cannot be made a citizen of the United States.
However a year later, the same court was faced with the trial of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), where they ruled that someone from the Indian subcontinent could not become a naturalized United States citizen, because they were not “white”. The Supreme Court conceded that anthropologists had classified Indians as “Caucasians”, and thus the same race as “whites” as defined in Ozawa, but concluded that “the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences”, and denied citizenship.
I find all this name business very interesting. There are a catalogue of people I know who say their name wrong (including two Ash-shocks), but the funniest must be a girl I once met.
You know how in the West, Shalini calls herself Sh’leeenee? And Malini becomes M’leeenee? Well I once met a girl and I said her name as “Kaamini” and she corrects me by saying “No no, it’s Kameeni.” Ah clueless Indians, you gotta love ’em.
My name is five letters long and two syllables. It’s rare but pretty frikking straightforward. The amount of people who goof it up is staggering, but I like it and I will never accommodate anyone. This frequently means old teachers/doctors/patients/acquaintances forget my name and not the names of James or Dave etc, but sod it – they’ll be dead soon.
oh gosh, that chick on NPR (lakshmay singh.. or however she pronounces it bugs the crap outta me too)….and looked at that today post..she can’t prononce mehta..unbelievable… but a lot of brown people these days ‘americanize’ there names… ugh.
Ow.
indeed. laxmi singh, for instance, is not a direct-from-desh-desi but rather from the caribbean. perhaps in her native place the x is pronounced hard. or perhaps not. her choice.
(yo, bb, glad to have you back, playa!) the thing is that desi names tend (though not always) to have the emphasis on the first syllable, whereas english ones tend to place it on the penultimate. but if you want to be orthodox about these things, you’ll never get to the end of it. the other day on the radio i was talking to somini sengupta of the new york times, and i made a point of pronouncing her name SO-mini, not so-MEE-ni, for the edification of the listening public. but if i were getting ALL bengali on that ass (figure of speech – not somini’s ass), i should have called her SHO-mini SHEN-gupta. which i didn’t. why did i draw the line where i did? i dunno. it felt right. and of course if she had pronounced it differently i would have adapted to her desire.
pax vobiscum
High church or Oxbridge?
i love it when indian news commentators say australian cricketer Naaaathan Bracken instead of the usual Naythan Bracken or I-an instead of eeyan, and when the characters in Goodness Gracious Me say jam-ess or janardhanan for james. i feel like i’m getting a little bit of my own back for all the times lazy English-only speaking people (multilingual people, to me at least, are much better able to pronounce foreign names and take much more care in doing so) repeatedly botched up my and other people’s name (raoul or rooool dravid instead of ra-hul dravid, sooooooorav instead of sou-rav, haaaaaar-bhaaaaaajan) even when they weren’t that hard to pronounce with a little effort. i’m with BB, won’t accommodate lazy people who, when corrected, still don’t make the effort.
nice one donnish! you can just call me the Archbishop.
the worst was when an indian person asked me what my american name was. they got a blank stare in return.
Folks – let’s not expect expatriate Indians to retain pure Sanskrit pronunciations and spellings once they immigrate out of India. It is normal to deviate from origins and blend into the local populace. Indeed, it’s healthy. Important thing is: do they retain the culture and ideology at the deepest levels even after many generations? If they do, then it’s great.
So, a north Indian may be called VijayNath Raj, a south Indian may call himself VijayaNathan Rajan and a Balinese Wijayyasadinda Radja and a SriLankan WijayeRatne – but the undercurrent is all the same. There’s no sense in poking fun in the divergence or calling one better than the other.
Even within India, communities have diverged from their original roots while retaining their meaning and purport intact. So up north you have “Seth”, a little down you have “Sethi”, further down you have “Shetye” in Maharashtra, then “Shetty” in Karnataka/Andhra and “Chetty” in TamilNadu. We don’t make fun of that divergence, so why resort to this?
M. Nam
The English cricket commentators pronounce Harbhajan Singh as Harbor-Jan
“We don’t make fun of that divergence, so why resort to this?”
for myself, i was referring not to diaspora indians who may pronounce their name differently for whatever reason (and i’ve known lots of West Indian Indians whose names have diverged far from their origins in both spelling and pronunciation and it’s only natural that they pronounce it differently) or to non-indians whose first pronunciation of my name or any indian name may not be “correct,” but to those who repeatedly mispronounce a name even after they’ve been corrected by the owner of a name or somone familiar with it – such as cricket commentators who spend years talking about the same players, newscasters who generally practice difficult names before saying them on-air etc.
i’m still not into “accommodating” people by changing the pronunciation of my own name or anglicizing it, but that’s up to each individual. as long as the person seems to be making a genuine effort, i think it’s ok. but there are those who are just so lazy or so arrogant they really don’t care how they pronounce names that sound “weird” or foreign to them and think they can just be dismissive because it’s not pat, or joe or sue or pam.
I don’t think it is a legitimate flagging until Oprah asks her why she did it and then tell her how disappointed she is at her (Audience clapping)
BTW, someone mentioned something about almost every newspaper picking up this story. I wrote something related to that phenomenon: http://www.josesandoval.com/2006/04/one-web-one-mind.html
After seeing yesterday’s Katie Couric clip, i just thought isnt it funny how Kaavya now seems to be accepting (albeit grudgingly) the charges of ‘plagiarism’ because even that is slightly more ‘honorable’ than admitting she didnt really write the book herself! ie even the label ‘plagiarist’ seems preferable to ‘non-author’/fake author.
“The English cricket commentators pronounce Harbhajan Singh as Harbor-Jan”
i’ve heard so many versions of Harbhajan by non-Indian cricket commentators. the one who disappointed me a bit was Nasser Hussain. i guess i shouldn’t have really held him up to higher standards, but because he is part Muslim and part Indian i expected him to be better at pronouncing a lot of indian names, especially muslim ones. my bias i guess. but it really bugged me when he said urrr-faaan instead of ir-fan. i mean if you can say irradiate, why can’t you say ir-fan instead of uuurrrr-faaan, and if you can say moonraker, why can’t you say Munaf instead of Monaf (as in money)?
chick pea – I found out on SM awhile ago that Laxmi Singh pronounces her name the way she does because that’s how it’s pronounced in the caribbean, where her family is from. Anyway, I’ve always sort of hated those people who correct you too quickly when you accidentally pronounce their name incorrectly. So sorry! But, ugh! Politeness is a two way street, miss ‘It’s Kaaaaren, not Keh-ren, darling. Karen, okay?” Eh, okay. People never pronounce my name, Madhu, correctly, and I never correct them. You know, I just honestly do not care. I don’t anglicize it, although I know my american accented hindi makes hindi speakers laugh. Thanks. That’s nice, kids. Way to encourage people. Anyway, be nice, be a good person, for god’s sake be fun at parties, that’s all I care about.
MD: thanks… when i was growing up, my preschool teacher wanted to shorten my name and just call me ‘pea’… my dad taught her as he did the other teachers… ‘i gave you that name and you’re going by it’…. even if they pronounced it funny.. at least they tried 🙂
Reading, but not posting.
Amen, Amy. I wrote a post on this blog expressing similar.
I don’t agree with AK’s concept that any pronunciation of a name is legitimate, or that there’s no ‘correct’ pronunciation of a name. The correct pronunciation is how it is pronounced in the region it comes from, by the speakers of the language of that region. Although I do mispronounce my name deliberately to make it easier for mainstream Americans, I would never consider that mispronunciation to be a valid version of my name. It’s just for convenience. And if I met another ABCD named Amitabh who similarly mangled his (our) name yet felt (as AK does) that any pronunciation is equally valid, I would disagree with him.
I was UNAWARE of Laxmi Singh being from the carribean. My comment shouldnt apply to her as I know very little about Carribean Indians. I stand corrected.
All of you must have noticed that how, Hispanics/Spanish media people insist on pronouncing their name the “spanish way”. What do people here think about that?
Guys, I stumbled to this blog from google and the postings are very itneresting. While I believe that Kaavya made an egregious mistake by plagiarising, especially when she was paid $500000 for the 2 books, she should have been all the more careful to make sure the published work was original, I am curious as to why is this case being scrutinized to such an extent? Arent chick lit novels based on similar plot lines, characters etc? I assume there would have been plagiarism in the other novles too…but every news media from the Harward newspaper to NY times to NBC/MSNBC talk shows have been ranting on and on this past week… Is it because of the unprecedented amount of money this young author was offered from a famous publishing house or the fact that she is an indian-american play a role in making this a huge story..
“I don’t know if MarkD is around or not, but Asian Indians are Caucasians. Anthropologically speaking, that’s all.”
Asian Indians are not Caucasians, but, according to a (arguably somewhat racist) ‘scientific’ categorization of race that took place many decades ago, the three main races were deemed Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid. According to this somewhat sloppy creation of categories, Indians are ususally ‘caucasoid’… except for those in the North East etc, I’m assuming! I haven’t got over the shock that me, brown face and black hair and all, has been told at least once that I was ‘white’…which is when I researched the issue and came up with the above!
And, Amy, “First off, I’d like to ask why it matters so much that Kaavya is Indian.” First off, that has not been the major focus of this discussion…not to mention the fact that Kaavya herself is stressing that her protagonist is Indian by way of proving the ‘original’ content she has brought to her book. When she accepted that contract with the publisher, along with the huge sum of money, interviews etc she very much entered the public domain. It is ridiculous to imply that only those who know her should comment on her. Should we only be commenting on people we personally ‘know’ and have no comments or opinions on politicians, artists, writers ….? Not to mention that interacting personally with anyone is no guarantee of ‘knowing’ them.
Guys, how many of us got a ridiculous number of lectures in high school about plagarism? I don’t know about you, but that’s all I heard about in English classes. Kaavya, bless her heart, made a youthful indiscretion, but she had to know what she was doing and she’s not a minor NOW. However arbitrary you believe society’s age-of-responsibility is, it’s set, and she’s got to pay the piper. I hope she doesn’t come out too scathed–her age is on her side for that, at least.
As someone who has writing aspirations, I was more than a little pissed about Kaavya’s book deal. After all, Vikram Seth only got something like 15000 dollars as an advance for A Suitable Boy, which is a part of the modern canon. If he got 500,000 dollars, I’d get it, but not someone with nothing but some precocious talent. Still, she does have talent, enough to have someone take notice. I only hope that she gets a chance to use it more constructively in the future.
Amitabh — Good luck coming up with your definitions of what is and is not “valid” — it seems a futile exercise. Even within a particular region, language evolves and changes, and neither pronunciation nor accents exist monolithically. Compare Brooklyn, the Upper East Side, and New Jersey — no monoliths even within a 15 mile radius. (And that’s before you throw in Iowa, Mississippi, Texas, and Hahvahd Yahd.) And that’s not even factoring in migration of people, ideas, and languages, which certainly accelerates the natural and inevitable tendency of language to change and evolve. When people migrate, that unravels your very definition of what a “legitimate” pronunciation actually is, for what is the relevant region to serve as your touchstone?
There isn’t some central register of “legitimate” or “valid” names and pronunciations. The way someone pronounces their name might come from their the linguistic development of their own accents and use of language, or the culture that surrounds them — which is to say, it might have evolved in a way that isn’t really even within their conscious control. But it also could be purely aesthetic or identity-based — they prefer to pronounce their own name because it’s their name, and that’s what they prefer. The rest of us don’t have some sort of claim of cultural ownership on their pronunciation — it’s their name, period. To respect someone’s self-definition in how they pronounce their name is an ultimate form of recognizing their ability to live on their own terms. Accommodating no one — neither you, nor me, nor RC, nor anyone else. Precisely the opposite of what RC suggests in his earlier comment.
As for Latino media personalities and how they pronounce their names, I don’t know that what you describe is monolithically true — there seem to be plenty of Latino public figures who don’t pronounce their names in conventional Spanish (and even here there are variations among Mexicans, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, people who speak “pure” Castellano Spanish, &c). But to the extent that what you describe is true for some of them, this may be culturally and individually contingent as well. It may simply reflect different experiences for the particular people you have in mind — for example, if they grew up bilingual, or had many people speaking fluent Spanish around them in their families and communities, it might be unremarkable for them to pronounce Spanish names in a conventional way. If they didn’t, then you might well perceive something different.
Have you seen a local newscast lately? You will find out how huge percentage of the latinos pronounce their names in Spanish way. Well why it isnt pronounced the way its written for the city San Jose?? So a new immigrant like me has to learn the spanish pronounciation but I will bend over backwards to accomodate the majority… hmmm interesting (Or could be as simple as … Latinos arent as ashamed of their culture as Desis usually are. 🙂 )
Yes, I speak Spanish so I pay attention to the language spoken by Latinos on TV newscasts — and by people in stores, by my colleagues at work, by folks on the subway. Which is not always, mind you, even Spanish at all — there are in fact Latinos who don’t even speak Spanish. You are seeing a very small slice of the Latino community if your only point of reference is a local TV newscast.
All I can say is that I know plenty of South Asian Americans who are not “ashamed of their culture,” and who do not speak the Maharani’s Hindi. I think there’s a tremendous risk that you are simply defining your own particular standards as some sort of test of cultural authenticity. Nobody is saying you have to bend over backwards to accommodate anyone, just that you respect the right of other people in your (non-monolithic) community not to have to bend over backwards to accommodate you, either — and do so without resorting to pejoratives about being “ashamed of one’s culture” and “living on other people’s terms.” Two-way streets and all of that. 🙂
i spent half my life as an americanized version of my bengali name. the latter half, mispronounciations and all, has proven much more fulfulling.
also… i follow a spiritual path few would acknowledge as islam.
and i call myself a muslim
authenticity is a deeeeeeeeply personal thing.
if you feel authentic.. then, shit, you are.
what on earth is that?
espressa:
amen.
I never claimed cultural authenticity. Looks like my seemingly harmless comment has hit a nerve. And what does being monolithic or non-monolithic have to do with this issue anyways?? When did I say one version is correct v/s another “culturally incorrect”?? All I said was that, why should one have to “accomodate”?? (When the majority doesnt even want that) what is accomodating and what is not is open to interpretation. what appears accomodating to me may feel completely normal to you. Who’s deciding here? I am not. If you want to accomodate thats fine with me. If you dont thats fine with me too, man !!
this is a philosophical tangent, but this reminded me of the line, “Bulla ke Jana Mai Koin”
the strand of indian (south asian?) religious thought that leads to the idea the world is maya confuses the issue because, what is authentic if our existence as self is an illusion?
A precious bit of wit. 🙂
And oh BTW, that culture comment was supposed to be a joke !! I dont like to wear culture on my sleeve and constantly point people to it. (Same with religion … oh but wait I dont have one .. I have many)
deeply offensive to some. besides if this isn’t an example of bending over backwards…
oh all right, i am joking. 🙂
cogito ergo sum, yes? even if the world is maya, interaction with it is real… at least to the individual, regardless of whether is matches up with some “objective” reality… authentic is the experience, maybe?
blogs are definitely maya.
🙂
No no, no nerves hit, really, just an interesting issue. You started this subthread by talking about the idea that Laxmi Singh is “accommodating others” or “living on other people’s terms” in how she pronounces her name. I don’t know how you reach that conclusion about motivation — about anyone, not just Ms. Singh — without making a lot of assumptions that are probably unwarranted. (You call them “interpretations,” but you can’t really interpret what motivates someone without knowing their subjective point of view.) And yes, I do think there’s a risk — not that you’re trying to do it, just that there’s a risk — that those kinds of assumptions will quickly veer into a version of claiming cultural authenticity, for you leave very little space for other kinds of explanations for what lies behind the way in which people pronounce their names.
thats kind of what i came up with too. the whole idea of the world being maya though, confuses me.
and i agree, probably 99% of the ish any of us talks is maya (present company excluded course! )
AK:
I agree with much of what you said in post #327 as it pertains to regions, population groups, change over time, etc. But I still hold (for example) that pronouncing Mehta as Metta is wrong. There is a received pronunciation that the vast majority of Mehtas in the world use. Kaavya pronounced it as Metta possibly to make it easier for Katie Couric, possibly so she could avoid sounding foreign, possibly because she CAN’T pronounce it the Indian way, or possibly because she actually thinks it’s pronounced that way. I think you supported my stance when you referred to ‘conventional spanish’. That’s my point exactly… there are ‘conventional’ ways to pronounce most Indian names. A different pronunciation may not be WRONG when looked at from your point of view, but is certainly not conventional.
also… it could have been humility. I don’t correct people in formal/professional settings (unless they ask). and the poor girl was being (deservedly?) humiliated. Perhaps she didn’t want to seem uppity.
This is not a case of a needle in a haystack. Ms. Viswanathan’s and Ms. McCafferty’s books are part of the same genre. Also, Ms. Viswanathan herself admitted to having read Ms. McCafferty’s books at least thrice, if not four times, apiece. Clearly, Ms. Viswanathan is a plagiarist, and should not be accorded any immunity because she is a teenager or was a rising Indo-American author. She and her work deserve the same level of scrutiny as other plagiarists, e.g. James Frey.
the other post has officially announced that kaavya’s book is being removed from the shelves! can we hear a WAAT WAAT! cheater cheater pumpkin eater!
I think that’s a bit too harsh and dramatic. I say my name as Gaul instead of Gawle all the time because I find it makes my life easier. I think it’s a bit far reaching to think it has anything to do with pride. I work with a Krakawski, Westheimer, Weiping, Imburgia and Cartegna and I assure you they struggle with their names just as much and pronounce just so it’s easier for people to say it instead of starting a “how do you spell that battle” which in the grand scheme of things can be distracting. The Cingular customer service woman has zero reason to need to hear the exact pronounciation of my name which incidentaly happens to contain a word a letter pronounciation that does not exist in the Indian language. My first name however I’m quite anal about. I will repeat it 20 times to make sure you say it right and will continue to correct you and if you continue to say it wrong I will put you on ignore till you learn 🙂 It’s 4 letters. Get with it.
Looks like Kaavya’s publisher has pulled the book off the market. At least they finally did the right thing instead of continuing to go along with the “unintentional internalization” charade Kaavya put forth all this week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/books/27cnd-author.html?hp&ex=1146196800&en=624c5c30a07fe9b1&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Request to SM honchos:
Now that Kaavya’s book as been pulled from the market and we can all get some closure, can you blog about something boring so I can get back to work (thus removing the need to come into work on Labour Day to catch up)?
I agree that Kaavya is a stain on our brown peoples’ reputation. She makes us look even more obsessed with getting into college then we already are. Check out this post..A Drive in the Country: How Kaavya Viswanathan Got In, Got Paid….and Got Caught!