Plagiarism

So Kaavya Viswanathan, this nineteen-year-old Harvard student, gets a million dollar two-book deal, and is now being accused of plagiarizing. I read the article in the New York Times about the case, and my first reaction was that the example in the article didn't seem so blatant. But I followed the link to the other examples, and yeah, it's a little too coincidental. I was ready to forgive this girl who’s got it all, and put aside my petty jealousy to support this fellow author, to shout out a “way to go” to a fellow Indian.

And then I read that other article, the other link in the original New York Times article, and it included a quote by her about her experiences during the college application process:

"People would ask, 'Who's writing your recommendation for Yale?' And they wouldn't tell you because it gives you a competitive advantage if people don't know."

Huh? This is from a Harvard student? A writer? Someone with ambitions to be an investment banker when she graduates? (Sorry, that last one had nothing to do with anything). So who's asking whom? And who's not answering whom?

Now, maybe it's just me being bitter that some 19-year-old can have a book contract (although apparently it involved paying $10K - $20K over her junior and senior years to get into an Ivy League school), but I'm really not impressed. And sure it's "just chick lit", but with the sheer number of chick lit authors and books out there, including Asian American ones, I would expect more from her - especially during an interview with New York Times.

I don’t mean to insult chick literature. In fact, I believe the easy readability of most books of that genre make it an exceptionally difficult genre to write. I would love to have that kind of voice throughout an entire novel (heck, I’d love to have an entire novel – you know, one that I came up with all by myself). I just know that it’s often put down as not a serious genre.

But then again, who am I to criticize how someone speaks during an interview. On my one television appearance (discussing picky eaters on the local news), I used the word "crapshoot". Around children. Talking about children. Oh well. It took me a while to live that one down. (And here I am bringing it up. Not too bright, am I?)