(no subject)

[oakenguy]

If the msscribe debacle wasn't enough trainwreck/schadenfreude for you, then this might be music to your ears: an enterprising Harvard journalist has found Kaavya "How Opal Mehta Plagiarized and got a Huge Book Deal" Viswanathan's LJ! It got taken down, but before it disappeared someone mirrored it, and you can read it here: http://kahini12.livejournal.com/.

Some initial notes:

She and the spacebar have, at best, a nodding acquaintance.

Hangovers, on the other hand? Close friends.

Comments

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

Did your msscribe entry get deleted? And did msscribe just disappear off lj?

[anadandy.livejournal.com]

msscribe has changed her journal name twice since being msscribe. I think she changed it again after the latest bit.

[lixie.livejournal.com]

God bless the magic Internet.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Y'know, not meaning to be a spoilsport or anything, but I looked at some of the more detailed accounts of the plagiarism, and, hard as I looked, couldn't find anything that could really qualify. There was a description of a character wearing the same t-shirt as in one of the Princess Diary books. Except...it's a real t-shirt, so, you know, more than one person can be expected to wear it. And it was all like that. It was clearly derivative, and not very original. But if every book that used images and phrases and concepts derived from Tolkein ended up on the witness stand, we'd never get any reading done.

She was an easy target, because she was getting attention and was young, smart, successful, and not white. No, the book probably wasn't very original nor all that good. But the hoopla and finger-pointing that went on was ridiculous. Frankly, I think people were sorry that the Million Little Pieces scandal was sinking out of sight and wanted a new publishing debacle to play with.

Right, sorry. We now return you to your regularly scheduled trainwrecks, and I'll stop taking things too seriously.

...for about three minutes, anyhow...

[helianthas.livejournal.com]

what is the msscribe debacle?

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

I particularly like this sentence:

Surelyonce I can do all these things, I will be well on my way to being atrophy wife?

ATROPHY WIFE! Is that the sort of wife who lies around on a chaise lounge, wearing silk pyjamas and eating bonbons while smoking a cigarette? Eventually, her legs are so atrophied that she can't walk, so she just continues to lie there, looking decorative?

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I read some of them too, and they were... kind of like those students Akycha told us about? There was a kid that wrote one paper, and a second kid who took that paper, rearranged the sentences a bit, and turned that in as a new paper? The investigators still decided it was cheating.

I dunno. You could be right. I just know that everything I've heard about college students in the past several years convinces me that it's entirely within the realm of possibility that someone would go to this much trouble to cobble together a shoddy piece of derivative crap.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

The extensive expose of Harry Potter fan "MsScribe" and her sockpuppetry written by mysterious detective charlottelennox. It's an interesting read if reading about real people being petty and mean doesn't bother you overmuch.

[fightguy.livejournal.com]

LOL! Thou hast it aright, methinks!

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

Really? Because as I read through the side-by-sides in the wikipedia article on her, cumulatively it seemed pretty damning to me. So many specific constructions and turns of phrase and incidents worked up the same way. If I were a professor grading or an editor I'd have a hard time not calling it plagiarism.

McCafferty's book, page 7: "Bridget is my age and lives across the street. For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget's braces came off and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh grade Honors classes."

Viswanathan's novel, page 14: "Priscilla was my age and lived two blocks away. For the first fifteen years of my life, those were the only qualifications I needed in a best friend. We had bonded over our mutual fascination with the abacus in a playgroup for gifted kids. But that was before freshman year, when Priscilla's glasses came off, and the first in a long string of boyfriends got on."

...I just can't pass that off as the derivative language of shared genre or whatever.

I'm also a little dubious about her gender and ethnicity having much to do with it, as you point out, the big scandal preceding involved a white man. A juicy scandal just rolls in this culture.

[anadandy.livejournal.com]

Another interesting note from that journal - the meme:

9) Draco Malfoy, from the Draco Trilogy

1. I thought Draco Malfoy was from, you know, the Harry Potter books.

2. The Draco Trilogy is a fanfic written by Cassie Claire, who has had her own brush with plagiarism scandals.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

Possibly she meant Draco, as portrayed in the Draco Trilogy. Since one can hardly argue that many versions of Draco in slash are anything like Canon Draco.

[modpixie.livejournal.com]

is that a parody of kaayva v.'s journal or is that a real journal?

[anadandy.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm sure that's what she meant - it's just a classic example of all that is unholy and wrong in fandom :)

[anadandy.livejournal.com]

and icon love! :)

[callunav.livejournal.com]

No, you're right. The article I looked at didn't have anything nearly that close. That's not derivative, that's copying. Poor stupid girl.

I retract my previous statement.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

You know...I have come to the conclusion that if/when I ever publish anything, I'm locking the *hell* out of my journal.

That's...

I don't suppose it's any worse than the majority journals of people her age and in college, but.... Stopping reading now.

[maxineofarc.livejournal.com]

I'd read several similar side-by-side excerpts. Part of me wants to go "eh, chick-lit books are all identical anyway" and shrug it off, but there are just too many near-direct lifts.

What I'm curious about is exactly how much role the book mill ("packager" I think they're called), which also "packages" several other chick-lit lines of note, including The Princess Diaries and I believe Traveling Pants, had in actually writing the book. Nobody seems willing to get to the bottom of that one.

[rantarn.livejournal.com]

Rats, I was going to point that out as being on the money.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

:)

[foresthouse.livejournal.com]

Heehee. Yay! Drama reciprocity! I post drama for you to read, you post drama for me to read.

It's a symbiotic relationship.