I. Introduction
— Kaavya Viswanathan, April 26, 2006 [Link]
II. Conflict
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[via Harvard Independent; thanks, Rekha] |
Opal Mehta |
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All day the house had smelled of spices, and now before our eyes lay the resulting combustion of all that kitchen chemistry. The feast my mother had conjured up was extravagant, and I realized how hungry I was; I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, at least not on a daily basis, but today the sight of it was pure poetry. Brown sugar roti and cloud-puff puris just itching to be popped. Coconut rice fluffed up over the silver pot like a sweet-smelling pillow. Samosas transparent, peas bundling just below the surface. Spinach with nymph-finger cloves of garlic that sank like butter on the tongue. A vat of cucumber raita, the two-percent yogurt thickened with sour cream (which my mom added when we had guests, though she denied it when asked; I’d seen the empty carton, not a kitten lick left). And the centerpiece: a deep serving dish of lamb curry, the pieces melting tenderly off the bone. |
… the house had smelled of spices all day, and when we sat down at the dining room table, I nearly combusted at the sight of the extravagant feast my mom had conjured up. Usually I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, but today I was suddenly starving. The table creaked with the weight of crisp, brown rotis and feather-light, puffy puris. A basket of my favorite kheema naan sat beside the clouds of cashew and sultana-studded coconut rice in an enormous pot. There was plump okra fried in oil and garlic till it melted like butter on the tongue, aloo curry studded with peppercorns and glistening chopped chilis, and a crock of raita, a cool, delicious mixture of yogurt and sour cream, bursting with finely chopped onions and cucumbers. The centerpiece was a deep dish of mutton curry, the meat (my mom only used halal bought from an Arab butcher in Edison) already falling off the bone. |
Born Confused
III. Climax
‘I really thought the words were my own. I guess it’s just been in my head… I feel as confused as anyone about it, because it happened so many times.’ [Link]
On national TV last week (thanks, BEAH):
‘All I can tell is the truth.’
IV. Resolution
A Harvard University student’s “chick lit” novel has been permanently withdrawn and her two-book deal canceled, publisher Little, Brown and Company announced Tuesday… “Little, Brown and Company will not be publishing a revised edition of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life by Kaavya Viswanathan, nor will we publish the second book under contract…” [Link]
GGK, you have always been unintelligible to me but especially so of late. Maybe the fact that I am a “libbie-demleaning” “techie” doesn’t allow me to properly relate to you.
I swore swore swore not to post on anything KV related but I can’t take it anymore!!! What is with our ability to transfix on anything shiney for hours on end? KV’s real life saga reflects the purpose of the fluff-filled genre she contributes to… so much distraction for such little effort.
The biggest travesty here is not the plagerism because I don’t think she’s an intentional plagerizer at all. She’s a victim of very little imagination and mediocre talent who can soak things up like some kind of sea sponge. She’s probably led a very sheltered life, with very little opportunity for actual creative outlet and yet, is able to absorb the experiences and the words and the expressions of those around her with amazing accuracy. She’s probably really good at impressions and can repeat conversations verbatim and perhaps doesn’t rank too high on the original thought quotient. So essentially, she’s perfect for a mass-commodified genre like “chick lit” (without going into the debates of what that entails) because she IS so formulaic. Sucks that unwittingly, she’s almost too good at her job.
And can someone please explain to me how she was ever a “much-lauded author”? That’s like saying the Backstreet Boys displayed a lot of “talent”. Mmm… corporate packaging.
Dammit, Brownfrown, if only you’d waited till #75 like you were supposed to, you’d have fulfilled all my predictions in one fell swoop. Why don’t people ever do what they’re told?
Fair enough – but why lie about it? Saying things like “IÂ’ve never read a novel with an Indian-American protagonist” when she clearly has doesn’t do much for her cause.
Oh, I had also said, Those who don’t want the painful details don’t have to read. But they can’t help it. Before you know it, this one will have a hundred comments as well, half of them from people who think there are too many comments on the subject.
Just messing with ya, brownfrown. But seriously, you don’t think she intentionally wha…??
Don’t make me come over there and internalize yo ass…
dang thats a compliment!
BASTARDS! I’m getting sucked in.
Papal Mehta, I am so not saying she does what we all do all the time. She’s got super-powers that most of us mere mortals do not; a stunted imagination and an uncanny ability to repeat things… parrot-like. So not coming to her defense, just saying she’s boring and unoriginal, not a lying plagerizer. The first is almost as unforgivable as the second when you’re an author. She should find a new vocation that can make better use of her talents.
Meh, who knows? Because she’s backed into a corner? Because people panick and say stupid things or just forget in their nervousness? Because she’s probably as shocked as the rest of us? Oh, who cares? Would she seriously consciously cut and paste novels so that inevitably someone would find out and then she could be publically lynched? The girl is clueless. Ever heard of the desism “mugging”? That’s what she’s good at, that’s what she’s been rewarded for her entire life and that’s what she did here.
God Dang! Its upto 4 books now isn’t it. So much for un-intentional memorization.
HISS. I will cut you 😛
This book seems to have as many plagiarized sources as Sybil had personalities
No no no. That’s still too wily. Come on. Say it. She’s a lying plagiarizer. Say it. You know she is, we know she is, and you know you want to say it. Come on, say it. No one’s looking. She’s A…yes yes that’s good…LYING…excellent, we’re almost there…PLAGIARIZER.
There.
Now was that so bad?
No no no. You’re giving her way too much power. She’s just a very good student. A for effort. Expected to outperform everyone else consistently – especially when it comes to school work and aceing science tests. Lacks a certain creativity. Should work with ledgers or be a stenographer – stay away from story-writing.
NEEL!!! SERIOUSLY NOT COOL!!! DONT HATE ON THE LAWYERS!
and… i actually went online and bought ‘the book’ last night… i’m kind of psyched to read this mish mash of every single chic lit book ever written. i vote she wins some sort of cool award for plagarizing in a totally new and ridiculously innovative way–not just from one source but MANY! and not just in one way but MANY! that’s sort of a gift in itself…
Guys. I’ve joined the I’m-really-sick-of-this camp. In fact I’ve been there for a while. So as a token of good faith, I offer you something I spent a few minutes doing on the agreement we leave Opal be.
Do we have a deal?
Give it a rest already, willya? How long is SMgoin to flog this dead horse? She screwed up, got caught, ruined her career…move on, please. There’s gotta be more interesting stuff happening in Brownworld.
i know she totally plagiarised, and now from another brownie which is just not a-okay and a completely terrible thing to do:
but kaayva comes from a place we can all understand and this is the backdrop she has behind her:
-the famous crab story and its place within the indian psyche
-bollywood borrowing
-a totally unoriginal literary genre based on stereotypes and tropes
-corporate, commercialised ‘publishing houses’ that are really just huge media conglomerates
-a cultural identity crisis
-immigrant pressure to achieve the american dream
-high pressured academic environment
-high pressured family environment
-freakin high pressured community environment a la those mothers off ‘goodness gracious me’ with the ‘my son’s a doctor’ saga
-90% of overachieving kids from the same ethnic group going on to either law school, med school, or the corporate sector
no i’m not making excuses for what she did, i’m just saying let’s look at where she came from before she made them. yes she’s a rich little new jersey girl.
but rich or poor the above factors make for one very screwed-up kid who obviously let the pressure get to her. we’ve watched her die, how many times will we ressurect her so we can see the whole ugly thing replayed again?
They need to lock her up and threw away the key. This is looking even more disturbing now that she somehow copied three books. Sneaky little girl.
And btw, why do people insist that Kaavya is a American? She was born in India and raised in Scotland before moving to the States. Where does the American part fit in?
This has taken the term ‘twisting the knife’ to a whole new level.
Just watched the video..the girl is beautifffffffffffffffffffffful….. Plus, I am sick of world where everything is “copy-right” and “intellectual property ought to be protected”. All creative works should be Copyleft.
I predict that The Harvard Crimson will get the Pulitzer for Investigative Journalism next year. Finally, something to celebrate at Harvard.
It will only be a tragedy if she lets other people finish her own life story. This morality play reminds me of another Wolfe book, The Bonfire of the Vanities with Kaavya, the master of her universe. Like Wolfe’s protagonist, an immoral choice leads to a huge fall from a priviliged position. I’m hoping that she may, like the writer of Ecclesiastes, who had everything and declared it all vanity- come to the conclusion that putting God and not herself at the center of her universe, creates order out of chaos. I think her life so far plagiarizes Tom Wolfe’s stuff- I am Kaavya Viswanathan, A woman in full and this is the bonfire of my vanity.
You people are pathetic. You’re just jealous because she goes to Harvard and has written a book at just 19 and is living an interesting life. Mind your own business and go back to your own boring lives. Don’t you have a patient to attend to?
Yes! An English patient!
actually, she never admitted to intentionally plagiarizing. she said she “internalized” ( my new FAVORITE word) it all, which makes me think she should be working for NASA or something with that photographic memory. I mean, c’mon, that internalization has to be put to better use than chick lit novels. and enlighten me if i’m wrong, but isn’t it harder to actually compile all these various chick lit passages into one book, rather than just write your own novel??
There’s an idea. Maybe Viswanathan should have studied plastic surgery. Cutting and pasting is actually encouraged in this field.
‘Isn’t Opal Mehta’s family hindu? Why are they eating meat from only halal butchers only?’ many hindus in india eat halaal meat because the butchers are mostly muslim.. and many young meat-eaters do not realize that the meat is halaal. the older generation has come to respect, not just accept this practice. my question is: the name kaavya vishwanathan suggests a brahmin- what would she know about meat being cooked at home? well, it isn’t her but opal mehta who’s reminiscing: so why does opal mehta talk about’ I remembered cold baths from a bucket with a plastic dipper, and sweet, oily badam halva from the nearby Chola hotel.’ chola hotel? did someone mention’a gujarati from chennai’ in a previous post? i’m not even sure kv knows the surname mehta could be either gujarati, punjabi or.. most likely,she doesn’t know india at all. ‘I remembered the cold, creamy taste of fresh buffalo milk, Babaji pouring Ovaltine from one tin cup to another until froth bubbled thickly on the surface and it was cool enough to drink.’ ovaltine isn’t being sold in india for more than three decdes now (as far as i know). at least, no one kaavya’s/opal’s age could possibly remember anything about being served ovaltine.. the point is :’So, either she hasn’t written the book at all and she is honest about not having read a novel with an Indian-American protagonist, but lying about having written the book, or she did write every word of the book and copied a whole lot. Including material from a type of novel she had never read about.’
let her be.
Free Kobe
Whatever. Those NASA geeks are overrated.
Can someone please discuss political significance of Tony Blair wearing sacred thread.
I am sick of this.
Regards
NEEL!!! SERIOUSLY NOT COOL!!! DONT HATE ON THE LAWYERS!
all mixed up:
I am a lawyer. I’m entitled to be self-loathing. And I wished I had that magical internalization power when I studied for the bar exam.
No.
I think I had Ovaltine when I went to India a few years ago… but it may have been Horlicks, I can’t be sure.
The breadth of the coverage of this in the media surprises me… this doesn’t strike me as all that important in the grand scheme of things.
I wonder if she gets to keep the range…
There’s an idea. Maybe Viswanathan should have studied plastic surgery. Cutting and pasting is actually encouraged in this field.
Zing!
Papal, thank you. I agree.
Yes, whether you hate the Kaavya posts or not, you can’t help but post your “I’m so sick of this” comments…why? Are you really sick of this? Really? Are you? Because I’m just going to assume that if you keep clicking the “Continued” button on each of Abhi’s posts, then you’re not sick of this at all. In fact, you’re probably sitting at your computer right now wondering if we find out anything else about Kaavya, about what happens to her, etc. But that’s okay, nay, it’s human instinct. It’s human instinct to care about what happens to her. She’s South Asian; most of us are as well. But we’re all genuinely concerned with this issue not only because of the fact that it’s deeply impacting one South Asian American, but because this can potentially impact the rest of the South Asian American youth that are potentially being discouraged from writing as we speak (or, in this case, type). Listen (or, in this case, read), these posts will continue to appear as long as Kaavya’s story is important. So please, if you don’t care about Kaavya’s story, use your commenting privileges to talk about a post you do care about. Wouldn’t that be a better use of everyone’s time?
On an actually Kaavya-related note: If we’re really up to four different chick-lit books that she’s (apparently accidentally) memorized word-for-word, then I’m the queen of England. Isn’t there some law that says the answer that makes the most sense, or is the simplest, is quite often the correct answer to your problem?
peace, all 🙂
Yeah – Occam’s Razor
Thanks, bengali. Good to know.
Oh, and I should have added that manish posts stuff on Kaavya, too. Thanks, Manish.
Bengali Quite a few hindus in the south are so used to halal that they find the taste of jhatka unappetizing. I used to drive thirty miles one way to get lean halal meat.
Dakhini:
Well, you learn something new everyday! (You don’t request halal meals on planes by any chance do you? 😉 )
hm, if we must expose and condemn bad things brown people do, aren’t there plenty of really mean, vicious things that are way more deserving of such voracious contempt than a 19-year-old plagiarist? just wondering, cuz i haven’t seen any major effort to bring light to brown individuals committing things like rape, spousal battery, or hate crimes, for example, while people having been intent on trashing this chick since even before the plagiarism stuff got out.
re: halal meat, my family is hindu (west side- maharashtrian) and we make special trips to buy it because my parents prefer the goat meat.
Since this could have been me, if I had decided to pursue invention, that is creative interpretation, rather than straight journalism, I think she deserves everything she’s getting. If she had love or respect for literature, (and I do count the stupid-but-fun YA books under that category, since I cut my little desi-lit eye-teeth on Born Confused before moving on to Ghosh and Rushdie and Naipaul) she would have fessed up when it became obvious she might be on the road to the Next Big Thing. I do feel bad that a character flaw, that was probably painted over and excused by people around her who should have been more responsible, might end up ruining her future career.
Although, I’m sure she can make like the Bollywood starlets we love so much, and do some kind of astrological work-up on her name, add some extra consonants and she’ll be a whole new person, quite literally.
More similarities to other works:
http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9964
I don’t understand all the “I’m so sick of this…” or “can’t we talk about something else?” posts. Sepia Mutiny is not an on-going conversation where you have to sit and listen to each person express their comments sequentially before moving on to the next topic. If you’re REALLY not interested in discussing the topic, don’t click the link to any Kaavya-related stories! It should be obvious that people are interested in this story from all the comments being posted.
I think part of the reason there are so many comments isn’t because what Kaavya did is so horrible, it is because there are so many people trying to make excuses for her or somehow rationalize what she did. The reason why there aren’t more comments on stories about people who’ve done worse things than Kaavya is because you don’t see commenters defending them.
Bengali For some reason most of my outward flight tickets were booked by travel agents(I’m based in India), and they usually assumed I was hindoo veg(maybe the sacred thread was visible). And every return journey was on Emirates(thankfully!).
I agree! It is time we move on. Yes, she did make a mistake. Yes, she will pay for it. Her literary career will never ever be the same. And I am sure she wishes that she could turn the clock backwards. I am sure she did not crave for 500Gs and celebrity status while she was popping her pimples.
Be as it may, we do not have to spend the rest of our waking life dwelling on the same issue. I am sure all of us agree. I am sure manish and others wish they had 500Gs in their wallets too. I am sure their vision of a perfect pre-teen successful female Indian writer has been shattered. How unfortunate.
Now let go. Move on. There will be others that you can rip apart.
Instead of lecturing us on what we ought to find interesting, how about you just not read what doesn’t interest you. Thank you.
Of the three things you’re so sure of, Vijit, two are untrue and one is irrelevant. As Uncle Killa says, feel free to look elsewhere.
It’s true that a lot has been said on this subject already, but who know what gifts our young friend still has in store for us? There may yet be other sources for her liftings, and that’s quite interesting…
i like big butts and i cannot lie
:+:
wrt the whole “I’m sick of reading this” sentiment, for those vociferous “Then quit commenting!”-types. enjoy.
:+:
———: hey. ur anna fr sepia rt?
politicaldesi: yes.
———: sick of all this opal isht
politicaldesi: sorry. it’s very popular, i know there’s been a lot of it, half of us are covering it, etc.
———: lol
———: i said i was sick of it and tehy were all STOP COMMENTIN THEN lol
politicaldesi: well, they have a bit of a point.
———: nah. their wrong.
politicaldesi: how so?
———: theirs nothin else to read! teh other isht is soo boring. politics and isht. its like doin homework. lol.
politicaldesi: you find politics boring?
———: yeah
politicaldesi: you have read my screenname, correct?
of course, my comment HAD to come after THAT. 😉
Ananthan,
Sounds like “Bournvita”, buddy 😉