I love it when a literary scandal breaks on a Monday, because then I know PW Daily will be sure to reference it in “Talk Back Tuesday,” like this week’s question about Kaavya Viswanathan. “What is the best way to deal with charges of plagiarism?” PW asks. “Does plagiarism hurt an author’s career—or should it?” So far, the range of opinions seems fairly obvious: Little, Brown should’ve vetted the book harder; kids plagiarize all the time; y’all just hate Kaavya because she’s successful; and, from publishing contrarian Lynne Scanlon, “I just find it hard to believe that such a smart girl would do such a dumb thing.” Although former 17th Street Productions crew member Lizzie Skurnick, in an interview with the Harvard Independent, described how the factory-like setting could lead to such situations:
“There are just reams and reams of stuff that’s written… It’s unavoidable that certain phrases will be recycled or said in a certain way… Often what you’ll find is that, it’s not that anyone is copying, it’s just that [these phrases] are the first things a mediocre writer would reach for.”
Longtime GalleyCat reader Susanne Fogle, in pointing the PW survey out to us, took the hard line: “Plagiarism should do more than ‘hurt’ an authors career—it should end it… Rather than defend her, Little Brown should sue to try and get back some of that fat advance.” (Somebody’s bound to get sued, at any rate, since Megan McCafferty’s publisher continues to push their case, describing Viswanathan’s actions as “nothing less than an act of literary identity theft.”)
Neeraja Viswanathan (left, and no relation, “to the best of my knowledge, [and] I feel like I’m going to be saying that for a while…”) comments on sharing a name with an infamous writer: “Viswanathan is actually a common South Indian name—I know at least six Viswanathans myself—but this is the first Viswanathan who has made an ass out of herself in my profession.” (It was actually quite a pleasant surprise to hear from Neeraja, as I’ve been looking forward to her nonfiction book, The Devil Inside Her.) But she also eases up a bit on Kaavya, noting that most teen writers remain unpublished until they’ve burnt through their influences and found their own voice. “This is solely at the feet of the publishing industry,” Neeraja decides, “thinking that writing is some sort of game that anyone can play, if they get enough high-powered advance press on their side.”
Or, as John Scalzi puts it, “A teenager plucking choice passages from someone else’s work to give her own work additional resonance? That’s what happens on MySpace 13,000 times a day.” Meanwhile, Valerie Frankel writes in to remind us that while Kaavya Viswanathan may have “absorbed” Megan McCafferty’s line about girls being either smart or pretty, she (Valerie, that is) is the one who wrote the book on Smart Vs. Pretty, way back in 2000. “I’m planning to sue both of them!” she jokes. “For big money!”