The pirated version of the plagiarized text: ‘How Opal Meht Got Kiss.’ The sequel is about her little sister, Crystal Meht.

Careful quality control goes into the photocopying

A ‘Time Warner Oricinal’ for just Rs. 100 in Bombay

After a spate of Kaavya Viswanathan defenses by Indian newspapers which don’t believe in intellectual property anyway, here comes one from a party organ which really should know better, the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Copying is essential to learning. When a toddler repeats a word, it is great cause for celebration… In high school and college, students memorize their lecture notes and redeliver this content back to professors on exams, often without the expectation of attribution. The ability to repeat back what they learned (generally without attribution) is richly rewarded. We encourage our students to recycle objects and ideas they get from others. [Link]

This mealy-mouthed exoneration is an insult to one’s intelligence. The problem wasn’t a poor, misguided remedial English student who thought copying without attribution wasn’t a problem. The problem was an intelligent high school student who didn’t think she’d get caught; and if caught, that lifting entire paragraphs and rewording a few phrases would be considered plagiarism in the flesh-singing spotlight of public scrutiny.

The Village Voice re-reads (re-reads! Gluttons for punishment!) Opal Mehta with Freudian eyes:

Paragraphs dripping with entitlement conceal not only purloined prose, but also clues that sound, chillingly, like a cry for help. “They would probably have to move my file from M: Mehta to P: Psychotic,” Opal muses during her interview meltdown. “I know the secret you’re keeping,” someone yells at her in a dream–through a megaphone, no less.

Most bizarre is Viswanathan’s pinch from Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990): The oddly inflected doggerel of public-health posters (spotted in a train station) becomes the handiwork of the (white, J. Crew-genic) student council president. “You didn’t write them yourself?” an impressed Opal asks him. He answers, “Well . . . I suppose I did.” (Feeling guilty about her novel’s nonsensical racial caricatures, did Viswanathan need to repent by tacitly invoking . . . the most famous Indian writer in the English language?) [Link]

Like some of the plagiarism examples cited, it’s a stretch. But it makes for fun summer reading, just like the tomes once sourced.

Meanwhile, one plagiarized author, Megan McCafferty, will have you know that the Manolo-wearing spawn of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret are actually quality literature:

Fallout from the scandal has been equally harrowing for all teen book writers, McCafferty said. “Books for teens have taken a huge beating in the media,” she said. “These very elitist comments about ‘how all books for teens are crap; so isn’t this just crap stealing from crap’. My books are not crap.” In an opinion letter published in the New York Times, one writer wrote that teen books are “undemanding literature for undemanding readers,” McCafferty said -an assumption McCafferty finds insulting. “There’s so much good writing for teenagers now,” she said. “People make across-the-board judgments.” [Link]

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