In 2006 Kaavya Viswanathan
was accused of plagiarism and lost her two-book deal with Little Brown when
readers made authors and others aware that her book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life had very similar lines to
works of Salman Rushdie, Sophie Kinsella, Megan McCafferty and Meg Cabot.
There was also a very similar passage in her book from another author Tanuja
Desai Hidier.
After Kaavya’s book was published and read, there was much speculation and emails from readers picking up passages of Kaavya’s work. Most readers of Megan McCafferty’s first two novels felt that the examples were too similar and allegations that Kaavya had plagiarised large chunks of Megan’s work started appearing. Kaavya then sent an apology to Megan McCafferty regarding how much she was influenced by the writer. And how she wasn’t aware how much she had actually internalised.
I Googled Kaavya and found a
whole lot of information in Wikipedia.
I do agree that we do absorb
and probably internalise a lot of what we read, hear and listen to. I do agree
that a lot of writers have similar styles, similar sense of humour and
sometimes characters with the same traits.
However, I think that actual
examples, conversations and plots in books unless they are copied and the words
are deliberately changed, they could not sound so similar and so exact unless
they were deliberately copied.
I think this is why Kaavya
lost her book deal, have a read. The examples below show how uncannily similar Kaavya's descriptions and examples are. I've highlighted Kaavya's samples in bold.
Sample passages:
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."
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."
_
page 23: "Though I
used to see him sometimes at Hope's house, Marcus and I had never, ever
acknowledged each other's existence before. So I froze, not knowing whether I
should (a) laugh (b) say something (c) ignore him and keep on walking."
page 49: "Though I
had been to school with him for the last three years, Sean Whalen and I had
never acknowledged each other's existence before. I froze, unsure of (a) what
he was talking about and (b) what I was supposed to do about it."
_
page 23: "He’s got
dusty reddish dreads that a girl could never run her hands through. His eyes
are always half-shut. His lips are usually curled in a semi-smile, like he’s
in on a big joke that’s being played on you but you don’t know it yet."
page 48: "He had
too-long shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes, which were always half
shut. His mouth was always curled into a half smile, like he knew about some
big joke that was about to be played on you."
_
page 68: "Tanning was
the closest that Sara came to having a hobby, other than gossiping, that is.
Even the webbing between her fingers was the color of coffee without cream.
Even for someone with her Italian heritage and dark coloring, it was
unnatural and alienlike."
page 48: "It was
obvious that next to casual hookups, tanning was her extracurricular activity
of choice. Every visible inch of skin matched the color and texture of her
Louis Vuitton backpack. Even combined with her dark hair and Italian
heritage, she looked deep-fried."
_
page 213: "He was
invading my personal space, as I had learned in Psych. class, and I
instinctively sunk back into the seat. That just made him move in closer. I
was practically one with the leather at this point, and unless I hopped into
the backseat, there was nowhere else for me to go."
page 175: "He was
definitely invading my personal space, as I had learned in Human Evolution
class last summer, and I instinctively backed up till my legs hit the chair I
had been sitting in. That just made him move in closer, until the grommets in
the leather embossed the backs of my knees, and he finally tilted the book
toward me."
_
page 237: "Finally,
four major department stores and 170 specialty shops later, we were
done."
page 51: "Five
department stores, and 170 specialty shops later, I was sick of listening to
her hum along to Alicia Keys..."
_
second novel, page 69:
"Throughout this conversation, Manda acted like she couldn’t have been
more bored. She lazily skimmed her new paperback copy of Reviving Ophelia—she
must have read the old one down to shreds. She just stood there, popping
another piece of Doublemint, or reapplying her lip gloss, or slapping her
ever-present pack of Virginia Slims against her palm. (Insert oral fixation
jokes, here, here and here.) Her hair—usually dishwater brown and wavy—had
been straightened and bleached the color of sweet corn since the last time I
saw her...Just when I thought she had maxed out on hooter hugeness, it seemed
that whatever poundage Sara had lost over the summer had turned up in Manda’s
bra."
page 48: "The other
HBz acted like they couldn’t be more bored. They sat down at a table, lazily
skimmed heavy copies of Italian Vogue, popped pieces of Orbit, and reapplied
layers of lip gloss. Jennifer, who used to be a bit on the heavy side, had
dramatically slimmed down, no doubt through some combination of starvation
and cosmetic surgery. Her lost pounds hadn’t completely disappeared, though;
whatever extra pounds she’d shed from her hips had ended up in her bra.
Jennifer’s hair, which I remembered as dishwater brown and riotously curly,
had been bleached Clairol 252: Never Seen in Nature Blonde. It was also so
straight it looked washed, pressed and starched."
_
first novel, page 217:
“But then he tapped me on the shoulder, and said something so random that I
was afraid he was back on the junk.”
page 142: “...he tapped me
on the shoulder and said something so random I worried that he needed more
expert counseling than I could provide.”
_
first novel, page 46: “He
smelled sweet and woodsy, like cedar shavings.”
page 147: “...I had even
begun to recognize his cologne (sweet and woodsy and spicy, like the sandalwood
key chains sold as souvenirs in India.)”
_
second novel, page 67:
“...but in a truly sadomasochistic dieting gesture, they chose to buy their
Diet Cokes at Cinnabon.”
page 46: “In a truly
masochistic gesture, they had decided to buy Diet Cokes from Mrs. Fields...”
_
second novel, page 68:
“‘Omigod!’ shrieked Sara, taking a pink tube top emblazoned with a glittery
Playboy bunny out of her shopping bag.”
page 51: “...I was sick of
listening to her hum along to Alicia Keys, and worn out from resisting her
efforts to buy me a pink tube top emblazoned with a glittery Playboy bunny.”
_
second novel, page 88: “By
the way, Marcus wore a T-shirt that said THURSDAY yesterday, and FRIDAY
today.”
page 170: “He was wearing
an old, faded gray sweatshirt that said ‘Tuesday’ on it. Except that today
was Thursday.”
_
Kaavya is not the first
person to plagiarise other people’s work.
Interestingly, it’s as if she
wrote most of the whole book by rephrasing other authors’ works. Personally, I
think that’s probably a much harder way to write, having to decide what to cut
out, what to change and what to leave in.
Plagiarism is taking someone
characters, imagination and examples and pretending they are yours. All of us
have our stories, memories and imagination … not all of us can put them into a
book
As a result of all of these
allegations and the ensuing press, she lost a two-book deal and a potential
movie deal.
I’m very interested in
plagiarism and am especially interested in why people bother to copy other
people’s work.
If you are aware of someone
who has plagiarised more recently than this, please let us know.
