A NYT tipster has found more lifted passages in Opal Mehta from yet another chick lit tome, Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella (author of Shopaholic), circa 2004.
At least three portions in the book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, by Kaavya Viswanathan, bear striking similarities to writing in Can You Keep a Secret? … the phrasing and structure of some passages is nearly identical. [Link]
The structural similarities between both versions of this passage seem damning. (It is one contiguous passage):
| Can You Keep a Secret? | Opal Mehta |
|
“And we’ll tell everyone you got your Donna Karan coat from a discount warehouse shop.” Jemima gasps. “I didn’t!” she says, color suffusing her cheeks. “You did! I saw the carrier bag,” I chime in. “And we’ll make it public that your pearls are cultured, not real…” Jemima claps a hand over her mouth… “OK!” says Jemima, practically in tears. “OK! I promise I’ll forget all about it. I promise! Just please don’t mention the discount warehouse shop. Please.” |
“And I’ll tell everyone in that in eighth grade you used to wear a ‘My Little Pony’ sweatshirt to school every day,” I continued. Priscilla gasped. “I didn’t!” she said, her face purpling again. “You did! I even have pictures,” I said. “And I’ll make it public that you named your dog Pythagoras…” Priscilla opened her mouth and gave a few soundless gulps… “Okay, fine!” she said in complete consternation. “Fine! I promise I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll talk to the club manager. Just please don’t mention the sweatshirt. Please.” |
What boggles the mind is that there are people reading chick lit so closely as to be able to detect this. True, uh, dedication 
You know a story is overexposed when Paris Hilton’s relatives try to piggyback on the publicity 
But Viswanathan’s agent will have you know that when the Crown took down the Little, Brown, her client was the real victim. It’s her twinkie defense:
Viswanathan said she had read McCafferty but called herself the victim of a photographic memory. “Somewhere in her mind, she crossed an invisible line with this material and didn’t realize that the words so easy and available to her were not her own,” says her agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh… Walsh says, “I guarantee you she’ll graduate first in her class.” [Link]
<
p>Ruth Marcus at the WaPo criticizes Viswanathan for unoriginality by using the phrase ‘curry-scented.’ The irony escapes her:
The curry-scented slapstick that follows is more product placement (Moschino miniskirt, Jimmy Choo stilettos, Habitual jeans) than literature… [Link]
The Economic Times shows some sensitivity:
It might be pertinent to remember that some years ago, a young author was being promoted by many senior writers as the next big thing in the publishing industry. And then, exactly the same thing happened with her. That story ended with the lady committing suicide. [Link]
<
p>Class, true class. The plagiary and subsequent suicide of Indrani Aikath-Gyaltsen gave rise to an interesting twist of phrase (thanks, Thalassa):‘If something comes from exotic parts, it’s read very differently’
… “there’s a phrase `aesthetic affirmative action.’ If something comes from exotic parts, it’s read very differently than if it’s domestically grown…” Friends said she turned down one dashing military officer because he spoke English with a Punjabi accent, the Indian equivalent of a blue-collar nasal rasp. [Link]
<
p>Other Indian papers struggled with the chick niche, spelling it ‘chiclet,’ ‘chicklet’ or ‘chic-lit‘ at random. Viswanathan was not amused:
“You better come correct with syntax [expletive deleted] or I’ll pop a dangling participle in your punk ass, you hear?” [Link
Meanwhile, one Boston brahmin worried the hungama might stain his silver spoon:
That may be fine for the world at large, but we at Harvard, quite frankly, are supposed to be something different. Every student here knows what it feels like to drop the H-bomb and is familiar with that tinge of pride at the recognition and respect which our institution’s name inspires… Harvard’s most recent and feted cultural contribution is chick lit written by an aspiring investment banker. We have fallen a long way from T.S. Eliot, and we should be ashamed. [Link]
<
p>This is the way the marketing machine ends, not with a bang but a whimper. But in all things a silver lining. Since many Indians don’t believe in intellectual property, Viswanathan could have a tremendous career writing for Bollywood. Why, just the other night I saw a fantastic new Bollywood trailer about a hit man who hires a cabbie to drive him around town for a night. It’s called The Killer. I suggest investing and putting up some collateral.
<
p>Viswanathan has already done what Bollyscribes do all day — lift, separate and brownify (PDF – thanks, Zai):
| Sloppy Firsts | Opal Mehta desifies it for you |
| These conversations [with Marcus] are like a shot of Schnapps with a Tabasco sauce chaser. Short, sweet, and strange… | Talking to Sean had been like eating sev mixture, the Indian equivalent to Chex Party Mix, sharp and sweet and spicy all at once… |
| [Marcus] smelled sweet and woodsy, like cedar shavings. | … [Seans’s] cologne (sweet and woodsy and spicy, like the sandalwood key chains sold as souvenirs in India.) |
| …I’ve become the subject of countless finger-pointing rumors. I heard he’s has taught her everything he knows, so she can do every position in the Kama Sutra at college. | …I was the subject of every senior’s finger-pointing, whispered rumors… “I heard the first item on your resume was being able to hit every pose in the Kama Sutra.” |
Lift kara de
Here are some of the similar passages (PDF) which most news stories haven’t yet quoted:
<
p>
| Sloppy Firsts | Opal Mehta |
| … in a truly sadomasochistic dieting gesture, they chose to buy their Diet Cokes at Cinnabon. | In a truly masochistic gesture, they had decided to buy Diet Cokes from Mrs. Fields… |
| “‘Omigod!’ shrieked Sara, taking a pink tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny out of her shopping bag.” |
“…buy me a pink tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny.” |
|
But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and said something so random that I was afraid he was back on the junk. “Did you know that the average American spends six months of his or her life waiting for red lights to turn green?” “What?” |
… he tapped me on the shoulder and said something so random I worried that he needed more expert counseling than I could provide.
“Did you know that the words amnesty and amnesia come from the same root?” “What?” |
| “Omigod! Let’s make sure junior year rocks,” she says. “Let’s make more time for each other. Friends are forever!”
… So I say even less at lunch than usual, totally aware of how alone I am. |
“Omigod!… We have to make more time for each other. Friends are forever!” I said even less than usual, aware of how totally alone I am. |
| Scotty has gotten into the habit of substituting curses with initials. | Every curse was either replaced by its initials or had a consonant cleverly inserted… |
| Upper Crust [as most popular group in school] | Upper-Cruster [as most popular group in school] |
| Dreg [as druggies] | Dreg [as druggies] |
Related posts: Innocent, Until Proven Otherwise, How Kaavya Viswanathan got rich, got caught, and got ruined, Buzzword bingo
Aww, aren’t you a sweet little naif for believing this?
First of all, all the article does is present a scenario as to how someone in the publishing industry COULD have slipped those passages into the book. It gives absolutely no evidence suggesting that such a thing did happen. So, your “suspicions” are entirely based on anecdotal evidence, i.e. NO evidence.
Secondly, that article was written on APRIL 24th! That was a long time ago, back when there were only thirteen examples of plagiarism. Now there are forty from the first book, and two additional books have since been cited as having passages lifted. The more that comes out, the less likely someone in publishing would be daft and stupid enough to risk such a thing, not with a half-a-million dollar contract invested in this author. And Kaaya hasn’t issued any denials to the charges. Equivications, but no denials. If someone else wrote all this, she wouldn’t say she “internalized” those passages. Because then she’d be lying.
Thank you. I can’t think of less convincing evidence than that moldy article, written way back in the days…
Kaavya has screwed up, and she’s paying for it. Fair enough. The newspapers are rightly describing her as a “serial copycat” and plagiarist (though based on the comparative passages in Manish’s post I’d class her as a dumb plagiarist for copying so pathetically). BUT the main accountability imo lies with the publishers. Little Brown offered K the contract and then promoted grandly her as an original. Publishers don’t give out contracts and high advances on a whim like Halloween candies. Especially an established place like Little Brown which is not exactly a mickey mouse shop. Do they not keep up with the competition and read the bestsellers from their competitors beforehand? Pretty said if they don’t. I don’t know what the explanation is for LB’s sloppy management, but the result has been big financial loss and loss of reputation for themselves and all their authors. Hmmmm, I wonder if K could have a claim v. LB. i.e. [They] misled her. They said they were gonna make her a star ‘n keep her there. Guess not. The current and second books have been cancelled in a damage limitation exercise.
Simmie
You say the word ‘elitist’ as though it is a bad thing to be elitist, and as though literary discrimination is to be associated with elitism, and as though literary discrimination is a bad thing. Literary elitism is not a bad thing – it is a good, a great and elevating thing. Bad writing and formulaic genre trash should be criticised and condemned, mocked and marauded when it needs to be. To call that ‘elitist’ is to conflate artistic and aesthetic judgment with a political concept and Marxist ideology in an absolutely erroneous way – to correspond the criticising of literary trash a moral idea of being a bad and nasty and unfair person. But this is dishonest nonsense.
Simmie
No they would not. It is absolutely dishonest and false to say that. That is you being patronising and insulting. Jane Austen is one of the guiding geniuses of the novel form. The Bronte’s wrote original and feral and uncompromising work. What utter dishonesty to say that people who call chick lit trash for what it is would not appreciate talent simply because a novel was written by a woman. This is disingenuous in the extreme. This is hiking together a hyper sensitive defensiveness to oppose literary discrimination with vague political notions of egalitarianism, to slander it with the term ‘elitist’ as if calling poor literature and genre is in some way correspondent with a reactionary and prejudiced political stance. This is nonsense.
SIMMIE:
I agree with you that there are forces in society that tend to make women’s writing deemed inferior to male writing.
However I think that most of the people commenting on this thread, me included, who do not like chick lit would consider themselves feminists (in the correct definition of seeking equal rights for men and women, not the wrong stereotype of hairy legged dungaree-wearing man-haters).
I am a big supporter of women’s writing and am studying it at the moment. However I don’t believe that I have to support all women’s writing. In fact I believe that supporting chick lit authors may work against some of the aims of feminism as these books enforce some negative stereotypes about women…to name just a few…
-all women are neurotic, emotionally frazzled and self-conscious about their need for a man
-all women are either sexually aggressive Amazonians (a la Samantha), prissy prudes (Charlotte), cold and sarcastic (Miranda) or whimsical, fun-lovin gals (Carrie). I know its a TV show but the idea comes from a written format and was originally a book
-all women, no matter how independent and high-powered, want a man and a family
and one of the most dangerous:
-all women have high powered, well paying careers in the media industry
(pay disparities between men and women in the western world in blue and white collar jobs are still shocking)
i am a big fan of women writers, especially feminist ones. however, i believe that equating chick lit which relies on stereotypes and tropes to get its point across, with writing by women that works to fight stereotypes and discrimination, is not the best way to go about addressing issues of gender equality.
the reason that someone like emily bronte endures and sir walter scott does not (he wrote popular fiction at the same time as bronte’s wuthering heights was published)…is because of pure literary talent and originality of style.
many chick lit authors like marian keyes are clearly talented. if they used this to break down stereotypes instead of reinforcing them, i think we would move closely to the gender equality we both clearly believe is lacking in the world.
much respect for your views though, these are just mine.
why cant we all leave her alone and let her move on. She made a mistake and she has to face the consequences. Or perhaps she is a victim of photographic memory as her lawyer says.
folks, i present to you the “Write Like Kaavya Viswanathan” contest
http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=409315&mc=118&forum_id=2&PHPSESSID=08bdbbb10f5b63918e93544e15bc3a2b#5698013
(in the words of the guinness scientists on TV, “BRILLIANT!”)
hey why is this the first line in Opal Mehta?
“Call me Ishmopal”
(my favorite from the contest) 🙂
Ah! The old excuse-the-rapist/mugger/murderer-and-blame-the-victim card. It’s the publisher’s fault that they let themselves be fooled by a plagiarizer. LOL!
Unless you can demonstrate that they knew the book was plagiariazed, or that there was trouble of any kind, and the publisher knew about it but did nothing, your claim has no merit. Or does ‘innocent until proven guilty’ only selectively apply?
Publishing Lifer, I agree there’s other factors playing into the decrease in demand for literary fiction (movies, internet blah blah), but partly it is that literary fiction is just not as entertaining as it used to be. Joyce Carol Oates is borderline literary. She’s written a lot of fluffy sensationalist stuff. Standard literary writers today tend to stick to realistic portrayals of relationships. Pick up any literary journal or even a glossy like the New Yorker – emerging writers stick, by and large, to the same realistic, emotional landscape. They’re not writing about madwomen hidden in attics or monsters created by mad scientists.
(A) Either KV wrote the book herself and is guilty of committing plagiarism.
OR
(B) She did not really write the book to begin with, and someone else (perhaps the writer/s at 17th Street) committed the plagiarism.
Kaavya needs to come clean and tell us which of the above scenarios is true.
Eitherways, she will be seen as either a ‘plagiarist’ OR as a ‘non-author’, ‘dummy-author’, etc.
Her public statements (wherein she admits to having internalized McCafferty’s works) would suggest she has accepted, even if unwillingly, the label “plagiarist” and that she prefers it to the alternative.
At least as a plagiarist, she can claim some credit for those aspects of the book which are not copied. As a dummy-author, she cannot even claim that much. Perhaps it is harder to admit the latter because that would involve facing up to one’s creative limitations/lack of talent–and that’s something no aspiring writer likes to do.
Tashie wrote:
I completely agree with you, some of it does enforce negative stereotypes. Some of it. Not the whole frickin’ genre.
Dolores wrote:
Dolores, dear, read a bit more carefully, if you will. I am not saying that all chick lit is on a level with Jane Austen! I am saying that people who dismiss the whole genre and never bother to try any of it (which doesn’t seem to me to be literary elitism based on actual critical standards, since you’re not reading the work before you reject it) are ABSOLUTELY the same people who would have dismissed Austen and all other female writers back in the day, because they decide to ignore entire swaths of books based on those books’ reputation. You seem to fancy yourself an intellectual, so surely you must know what sort of reception “lady novelists” received back then, and what sort of respect broadly accrued to their novels. Many wrote under masculine pseudonyms, and the work of those who did not was treated with smirking condescension by the literati — much like chick lit and romance are treated today, by people like you who scoff and call it a matter of good taste. (Do you really think such a HUGE yield of novels might not include one or two contemporary masterpieces? If you really don’t, then you’re biased beyond all hope.)
Anyway, if you think Austen’s work, if published in this day and age, would come in any other genre aside from romance and/or chick lit, then you’re kidding yourself. Think of the plots, the tone. As for Bronte’s feral brilliance, it doesn’t matter how deviant or inventive the prose is: we’re living in a world in which books are squeezed into genres for marketing purposes, and I’ve read some damn dark and bizarre things positioned as chick lit because the publisher thought that would help it sell. That’s the source of my distress, you see: not that “chick lit” is an insult applied to bad books about neurotic women, but rather that it’s a publishing category which encompasses some good books that then get slammed by people who like to diss the genre.
I’m done with this conversation now, so God (#142), salaam, hey Ram, selah and so on!
Hiya Cal,
The publishers are not little babies. They are an organization that has been in the business for a long time. So we are talking big bucks here as well as the fact that it’s unprofessional that they (they includes all the individual actors in the organization performing their respective roles) were not familiar with the bestselling highly popular rival works. They should have done their homework before accepting K’s acceptance of their offer. You are correct: It’s the publisher’s fault that they let themselves be fooled by a plagiarizer. LOL! Additionally, if LB knew that that they were being duped but looked the other way either intentionally or carelessly these are further facts building up LB’s responsibility. Like I said in my above post I don’t know the full story. But I think that the publishers hold the main accountability. That doesn’t mean an exemption for K from any shared or separate moral or legal responsibility.
“I have an issue with the priorities of certain people who will heatedly flay a 19-year old for a stupid mistake which really has no effect on my daily life (beyond having to respond to comments like yours) but not register to vote, give up their SUV or otherwise give two shits about REAL problems.”
come on, anna. has it really come down to this?
i have not seen a single comment in the last few days that has “heatedly flay”ed her. all people are saying is that she screwed up on some level and needs to own up to it. that’s all.
it great that you have enough compassion to go around, so is it never okay to call people out on stuff like this? people think that she’s BS-ing and are calling her out on it…you’re right, no one will ever no for sure, but do ever really know for sure about anything?
to reiterate from an earlier comment, you’ve made not so compassionate remarks about ashley simpson, rightly so. what’s the major difference here?
topaz,
Little rich girl steals and gets caught.
So what. Was she the great brown hope?
Weren’t you the one who said “It’s the 9/11 victims fault for letting their planes be hijacked. LOL!“
Better claim you plagiarized your thoughts, because this kind of stupidity can’t be faked.
How can you call them “facts” when you don’t provide any proof backing it up?
Once something is established, then it’s a “fact”. But it isn’t, so it’s not.
FROM: OPAL MEHTA
LITTLE BROWN LAW FIRM
ATTORNEYS/LEGAL PRACTITIONERS.
NIGERIA.
ATTENTION:
DEAER FRIEND,
COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON. GRACE AND PEACE AND LOVE FROM THIS PART OF THE ATLANTIC TO YOU. I HOPE MY LETTER DOES NOT CAUSE YOU TOO MUCH EBARRASSMENT.AS I WRITE TO YOU IN GOOD FAITH Y. PLEASE EXCUSE MY INTRUSION INTO YOUR PRIVATE LIFE.
I AM OPAL MEHTA,I REPRESENT KAAVYA VISWANATHAN, FORMERLY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. SHE HAS ASKED ME TO SEEK FOR A FOREIGN PARTNER WHO CAN WORK WITH US AS TO MOVE OUT THE TOTAL SUM OF US$500,000.00 (FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS), PRESENTLY IN THEIR POSSESSION. THIS MONEY WAS OF COURSE, ACQUIRED BY MS. VISWANATHAN AND IS NOW KEPT SECRETLY IN A RANGE ROVER….
Ashlee Simpson isn’t being used as a proxy for poo-flinging. Kaavya gets in trouble and the words “should be deported” and “outsourcing” suddenly surface. To me, Ashlee is pop culture, as inconsequential as AI, water cooler chitchat. IMO, Kaavya’s scandal/gaffe/crime, as demonstrated by 1000+ fast and occasionally furious comments left on this blog’s various posts about her, ends up being about so much more. Ethnicity, privilege, Harvard, (my erstwhile)envy of her etc.
Anna,
they’ll be 10,000 posts on the subject..
“Kaavya gets in trouble and the words “should be deported” and “outsourcing” suddenly surface”
Yeah, but none of those comments were made on this blog, unlike your requests for leniency & compassion which are directed towards to the commentors on this blog. You’re two examples are related to the fact that she’s brown, is that really why we should put more priority on it.
IMO, Kaavya is for the water cooler as well. And the same points (ethnicity, privilege) as well as nepotism were used to string up Simpson, ie how/why someone so young & unproven in the business was able to cut corners to get on top.
i hate that i even feel this way, but i’m starting to regret EVER writing that post over a week ago, (when we didn’t know anywhere near as much as we do now). if i had known that asking that people take a moment before condemning her was going to be such a BFD, i’d have thought twice.
i have always said that the punishment should fit the crime, not our emotional response to it. i pleaded for civility and leniency b/c we didn’t have all the facts AND i remember being a stupid 19-year old. that’s how MY process of compassion works. i put myself in the other’s place. trite and childish, i know. it was naive of me to ask all of you to play along with me. all i wanted to do was try and create a clean atmosphere/set the right tone for discussion on this blog in the beginning of this fiasco, so we could remain a crap-free space to discuss it. i’m proud that we have and i will console myself with that cleanliness as i continue to “lose goodwill” and “respect” from some of you.
i put myself in the other’s place. trite and childish, i know. it was naive of me to ask all of you to play along with me. all i wanted to do was try and create a clean atmosphere/set the right tone for discussion on this blog in the beginning of this fiasco, so we could remain a crap-free space to discuss it.
And that was a very compassionate and enlightened move Anna.
As Plato said, “Love is in the one who loves, not in the one who is loved.”
“as i continue to “lose goodwill” and “respect” from some of you.”
you haven’t (at least not from me). though, i agreed with and supported your intial post calling everyone to calm down and carefully examine the facts. i was puzzled that you kept at it even as 1) no one on this blog was really cutting her up and 2) as more facts pointed to KV doing something not kosher and 3) when people pointed this out, your response was something along the lines of its great we have time to make a 19 yr old’s snafu our main priority, with the war and other real problems that are going on.
you post was written right at the beginning of this storm, but nothing has changed in your request for compassion for her. at some point, don’t we have to call a spade, a spade?
i think that’s what most commenters are frustrated about, at some point, doesn’t KV have to accept some responsibilty (and i don’t mean of the “it was unintentional” type)?
In response to some of the concerns vented here for KV’s well-being, I thought I’d repost something from gawker.com which suggests she’s doing okay — not great, but well enough under the circumstances, and evidently is receiving support from Harvard profs.
http://www.gawker.com/news/fake-writer-day/gawker-stalker-kaavya-back-in-cambridge-171303.php
Cal, That wasn’t me.
Insider, Despite the ally relationship with its writers the publisher should anticipate potential problems to protect itself financially and legally. It’s insufficient for the publisher to have an expectation if it’s based largely on assumption. You say that the publisher doesn’t expect the betrayal of plagiarism. That kind of sentiment is not good enough due to being unrealistic. Step 1 for LB’s experienced editors was to have been familiar with the competition’s works. The books that seem to have formed Kaavya’s inspirations are very easily accessible. (1) They’re easy to find. Why? Because they’re bestsellers. (2) They’re easy to read. Why? Because of the type of content which then makes it easier to i.d. validly with the well-known books in (1). It would take less effort for a professional publishing house to verify the authenticity of the Opal book compared with a tougher assignment e.g. more technical or academic content (like a science or economic based work).
cc, I said:
You said:
Anna- You should look at all of the other forums on this website… I’m sure many of the other bloggers like you feel regret, especially when their blogs elicit comments that seem a bit….far-fetched.
Don’t worry about it:)
You bracketed “then” which should have been there in the first place, with a comma preceding it. I’m not trying to be the grammar police, but these little things can render entire sentences ambiguous.
In any event, why are we picking on the publisher? They’ve been pretty damn saintly throughout all this. They’ve stood behind Kavyya as well as they could during these circumstances. When the first questionable passages were revealed, they didn’t drop her. They said they would reprint the book with the offended passages stricken. When other passages were discovered, they pulled the book entirely with the option of republishing on the table. Once the other passages from other books Kavyya ‘borrowed’ from were revealed, finally Little, Brown withdrew the book and the contract. The only thing they haven’t done was force her to pay back the half mill, but that’s probably on the horizon. They could have left her out to dry from the beginning, but they tried to accomodate her the best they could until it was no longer feasible. And we’re going to hold THEM accountable? Wow, that’s quite a show of ingratitude.
Well here is another one. Passages also strikingly similar to passages from Born Confused.
Check out
http://harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9964
Though I was too skeptical to share in the sentiment, A N N A — I fully support your initial support for Kaavya. You’re the kind of girl I’d want in my corner. You have no reason to regret that post.
“i think that’s what most commenters are frustrated about, at some point, doesn’t KV have to accept some responsibilty (and i don’t mean of the “it was unintentional” type)?” -exactly!
Michael Chabon? Jonathan Lethem?
damn Topaz, you got any reason to sound so confident of your assessment? Or are you just making fatuous opinions in a little vacuum? You’re not one of those business/how-to writers, are you? Like “The Seven Commandments to Rising to the Top”? Or, “10 Simple Ways Not to Get Screwed by an Author”??
Your thunderous opinion is clearly so well-informed, and based on decades of experience, you should call Little, Brown right now!!! You’ll be next publishing messiah!!
i agree with espressa.
ANNA, I’d def want a bit of empathy vs crabby-crabness a la the famous story…
also has anyone noticed the irony of her publishing company’s name -‘little, brown’.
if only we all remembered that all of us were once li’l and brown too and man did we do some stupid things. maybe not as bad as this, i agree…
but those who never made a big life-mistake in their li’l brownness that they still regret to this day are the only ones who need to display the level of smug, self-righteous venom and hatred directed at one silly girl who is undeserving of further attention in a world of much better writers…
…and who probably wishes more than anything she could take back her colossal little brown mistake.
cc & so, What do YOU do?
Chill. I’ve stated my opinion in posts 152 and 163 and tried to explain why I think as I do. I’ve made it clear that I don’t think that only Little Brown is to blame. Should I repeat that again? It is true that LB has tried to accomodate Kaavya since the whole fiasco was first uncovered. Maybe they were only doing it to be nice to her? Still that doesn’t change the fact that they approved a book for publication that has been plagiarized and then put it into circulation. The publishers are responsible on that end. I personally don’t believe that LB was motivated by looking out for Kaavya alone. I’ve said above that it was a damage limitation exercise. The publishers need to deal with the problem of avoid being sued or paying settlements to the plural authors and their publishing firms claiming that Opal Mehta is very similar to their works. LB was smart to do this from the beginning before the net got deeper. The latest comparison Kaavya’s writing has been made with is work by Salman Rushdie.
cc,
Yeah, I bracketed “then” because I didn’t put it there in the first place. I didn’t put it there in the first place because I thought that it would be understood implicitly after the conditional use of the word “if.” You pointed out that you didn’t understand my statment. That’s why I tried to clarify with [then].
What do YOU do?
If you think I sound so confident, make fautuous opinions in a little vacuum, and am so clearly well-informed based on decades of experience so be it. That’s your opinion. You could be right, you could be wrong. Your opinion is not based on fact. In making it, you’re doing what Little Brown did. You’re making judgments without making a 100% effort to verify, validate, and substantiate. That’s the point of my post you quoted from above.
It’s not 100% necessary for me to state what I do and what my publishing experience is (if any) in order for me to discuss this issue. I’m not bothered what you do for a living. That’s why I think your profession is irrelevant to your query which doesn’t make sense to me:
Is there something wrong with that type of content, or those type of writers? I’d expect a manuscript with its examples, general observations, and case studies to be checked out by the potential publishers before a decision was made on it.
Again, you sound so sure of yourself. Lol, that’s confidence for you.
This is so not fun anymore. Tedious, in fact.
My opinion on your assumption IS based on fact. I’m one of the few publishing lackeys who’ve ventured a comment on these boards. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ll leave to the others to explain, if they want to, but you’ve ignored the other comments about how system works so I don’t see any reason to bother here. Shit like “100% effort to verify, validate, and substantiate”…desi, please. We are talking about books on boys, lipgloss, and My Little Pony sweatshirts. “Substantiate”?!? What the hell are you talking about?
Yes, publishing is a lilly white industry. That’s part of why they fell for Kaavya. The whole ‘exoticism’ thing Manish rails against endlessly. They wouldn’t know a Guju from a Mallu from a hole in the wall. But then again, do YOU know the tribal differences between laplanders and the orginal Norwegian settlers? The Bantus from the Congolese from the Eritreans? (and those are diff countries, btw). It’s a job for generalists who sweat through yards of manuscript submissions from agents, if not the slush pile itself, looking for something worth publishing. And you expect them to have read all, I dunno, 100+ chick lit titles published last year? Let alone the 100+ the year before that, and the year before that? Oh, and young adult books and South Asian books too…just to make sure little Kaavya didn’t copy??! SHUT UP.
so, what do YOU do?
I’ve made an effort to respond to your post 184 with logic. I disagree that your “opinion on [my] assumption IS based on fact” since I haven’t volunteered any information about myself. Your assumption about my opinion is to an extent going to stem from your assumption about me. I’ve also made an effort to refrain from unduly rude digs in my two replies to you. This is in the interests of good manners and civil discussion. I can make snide comments and swear. That’s my freedom of expression. However, I choose not to as that’s not my style. It’s your style, and that’s your freedom of expression. I would though prefer if you didn’t term my opinion as shit and tell me to SHUT UP. It’s darn impolite, and it detracts from your line of thought.
Cheers publishing lackey (your self-proclaimed title)
Hookay. Yes, the reason why you bracketed “then” was clear enough. That certainly didn’t need any explanation.
You made a conscious choice to not follow “then” with “if” even though that’s terrible grammar?
Whatever. Done!
Nope. Because I never accused you of anything otherwise.
So what? Of course they’re ultimately responsible. But “responsible” doesn’t mean “fault”. Those are two different and often seperate concepts.
To which I say: naturally.
If you gotta steal, you may as well steal from the top drawer.
I assume you had your ‘implicit’ reasons not to say “The latest comparison TO Kaaya’s writing… 🙂
I’m glad you raised this. Responsible and fault are often separate concepts but can look to each other in order to interpret the facts of a case. I hadn’t referred to fault previously because I was using ‘responsible’ in the context of the if …[then]…etc., etc. hypothetical. However, there could be a responsible-fault link if the publishers were accused of negligence in a law court. One would have to show that the publishers were at fault–because they had done something that didn’t conform with the court’s standard of conduct, or because they had not done something that they should have. Any determination of the evidence requires looking at the actual reality of the facts. Here this would mean evaluating how the publisher’s various responsibilities and duties played out in practice. Did these standards hit the yardstick or not?
Well—-as for those who are concerned why is she being singled out! The following cannot be argued:
1) She subconsciuosly admits to copying Megan M. 2) It is unusual to get 1/2 million advance for a new comer for a mere chick-liter….Perhaps Little Brown had shades of Zadie Smith in mind but did not do their due diligence. Of course Zadie Smith is not a chick-lit baby. Thoughts of Oxbridge competing with Ivy League and all that. 3) Wonder who wrote her essays for Harward applications……
The thing is she had put a blight on future young female brown writers…
Of course there are others to be blamed…Ivywise, DReamweaver, Little brown, her agent, her reviewers, maybe even her parents.
The thing is if she was not at Harvward it would have been a breeze!
I find that readers respond very well to posts that show your own weaknesses, failings and the gaps in your own knowledge rather than those posts where you come across as knowing everything there is to know on a topic. People are attracted to humility and are more likely to respond to it than a post written in a tone of someone who might harshly respond to their comments.