Kaavya Viswanathan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the "author". For other meanings, see Viswanathan.

Kaavya Viswanathan (born January 16, 1987) is an Indian-American woman who came to public attention in 2006 when portions of her debut novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life, were alleged to have been plagiarized from several sources.

As of fall 2008, Viswanathan is a law student at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.[1]

Contents

[edit] Book deal

Viswanathan began writing Opal Mehta while attending Bergen County Academies, a public magnet high school in Hackensack, New Jersey.[2] After receiving an early acceptance to Harvard, she showed her work to Katherine Cohen of IvyWise (a private college admissions consultancy), whom Kaavya's parents had hired to help with admission. Cohen contacted the William Morris Agency, which suggested that Viswanathan work with a division of Alloy Entertainment. Alloy is a media firm responsible for packaging the Gossip Girl book series and Ann Brashares' The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Viswanathan eventually signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown and Company for an advance originally reported to be $500,000. Michael Pietsch, the senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown, told the New York Times that the advance was less than the reported sum, and was split between Kaavya Viswanathan and Alloy Entertainment. She sold the movie rights of the book to DreamWorks SKG.

The novel deals with an academically oriented Indian-American girl who, after being told by a Harvard admissions person that she isn't well rounded, doggedly works to become a typical American teen—ultrasocial, shopping- and boy-driven, carelessly hip.

Opal Mehta garnered mixed reviews,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] many of which described Viswanathan as an author of "chick lit".[10][11][12]

The front cover carried a promotional "blurb" from fellow Chick Lit author Jennifer Weiner.

[edit] Alleged plagiarism

[edit] Megan McCafferty

On April 23, 2006, The Harvard Crimson reported that several portions of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got A Life appeared to have been plagiarized from Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, both written by Megan McCafferty.[13]

McCafferty has stated that she learned about Viswanathan's plagiarism through a fan's e-mail on April 11th, the same day "Charmed Thirds" was released, and roughly two weeks before the Crimson broke the story. According to McCafferty: "[The email's subject] read: "'Flattery or a case for litigation.' I thought, oh my God, somebody's suing me." McCafferty looked into the suspect passages at the fan's prompting. She said that reading Viswanathan's book was like "recognizing your own child's face. My own words were just leaping out at me page after page after page." [14]

Much earlier, in an interview given to The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, when asked about her influences Viswanathan had responded that "nothing" she had read gave her the inspiration to write her book.[15]

However, days later, Little Brown issued a statement in which Viswanathan "admitted" that she "accidentally" borrowed some passages from Megan McCafferty's novels. She said:

"When I was in high school, I read and loved two wonderful novels by Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, which spoke to me in a way few other books did. Recently, I was very surprised and upset to learn that there are similarities between some passages in my novel ... and passages in these books.
While the central stories of my book and hers are completely different, I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words. I am a huge fan of her work and can honestly say that any phrasing similarities between her works and mine were completely unintentional and unconscious. My publisher and I plan to revise my novel for future printings to eliminate any inappropriate similarities.
I sincerely apologize to Megan McCafferty and to any who feel they have been misled by these unintentional errors on my part."

In response, Random House, publisher of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings, issued a statement:

"We find both the responses of Little Brown and their author Kaavya Viswanathan deeply troubling and disingenuous. Ms. Viswanathan's claim that similarities in her phrasing were 'unconscious' or 'unintentional' is suspect. We have documented more than forty passages from Kaavya Viswanathan's recent publication 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life' that contain identical language and/or common scene or dialogue structure from Megan McCafferty's first two books, 'Sloppy Firsts' and 'Second Helpings.' This extensive taking from Ms. McCafferty's books is nothing less than an act of literary identity theft.
Based on the scope and character of the similarities, it is inconceivable that this was a display of youthful innocence or an unconscious or unintentional act."

[edit] Sample passages

McCafferty's book Viswanathan's novel
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.”

[edit] TV interview

On April 26, 2006, Viswanathan appeared on The Today Show with Katie Couric. In the interview with Couric, she maintained her innocence, saying that any and all similarities were "completely unintentional" and that she must have "internalized" those details without realizing it, since she has photographic memory and the ability to internalize books' passages.

She also claimed to have attempted to contact author McCafferty (of whom she admitted to being "a big fan") after the scandal. McCafferty later denied this in an interview with People Magazine, saying, "To my knowledge, this is not the case."

[edit] Additional accusations

On May 1, the New York Times ran a story giving national prominence to claims on the Sepia Mutiny blog that Viswanathan may have lifted text from Salman Rushdie's 1990 novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories.[16]

  • On page 35 of Rushdie's novel, one of the warnings reads: "If from speed you get your thrill / take precaution—make your will."
  • On page 118 of Viswanathan's novel, one of the posters reads: "If from drink you get your thrill, take precaution—write your will."
  • On page 31 of Rushdie's novel, another warning reads: "All the dangerous overtakers / end up safe as undertaker's."
  • On page 119 of Viswanathan's novel, another poster reads: "All the dangerous drug abusers end up safe as total losers."

May 2 brought two additional charges. The New York Times alleged "striking similarities" between passages in Opal Mehta and those in a "chick-lit" novel called Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella.

  • From Can You Keep a Secret?:
“And we’ll tell everyone you got your Donna Karan coat from a discount warehouse shop.”
Jemima gasps. “I didn’t!” she says, colour suffusing her cheeks.
“You did! I saw the carrier bag,” I chime in. “And we’ll make it public that your pearls are cultured, not real…”
Jemima claps a hand over her mouth…
“OK!” says Jemima, practically in tears. “OK! I promise I’ll forget all about it. I promise! Just please don’t mention the discount warehouse shop. Please.”
  • From Viswanathan's Book:
“And I’ll tell everyone that in eighth grade you used to wear a ‘My Little Pony’ sweatshirt to school every day,” I continued.
Priscilla gasped. “I didn’t!” she said, her face purpling again.
“You did! I even have pictures,” I said. “And I’ll make it public that you named your dog Pythagoras…”
Priscilla opened her mouth and gave a few soundless gulps…
“Okay, fine!” she said in complete consternation. “Fine! I promise I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll talk to the club manager. Just please don’t mention the sweatshirt. Please.”

Viswanathan and her publisher declined to comment on these allegations.[17] In addition, The Harvard Crimson alleged that Viswanathan appeared to have borrowed passages from Meg Cabot's 2000 novel The Princess Diaries.[18]

  • Page 12 of The Princess Diaries reads: "There isn’t a single inch of me that hasn’t been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. [...] Because I don’t look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights. Mia Thermopolis never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or Christian Dior bras, which by the way don’t even come in 32A, which is my size. I don’t even know who I am anymore. It certainly isn't Mia Thermopolis. She’s turning me into someone else."
  • Page 59 of Viswanathan’s novel reads: "Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized. I didn’t look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn’t own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat. She didn’t wear makeup or Manolo Blahniks or Chanel sunglasses or Habitual jeans or La Perla bras. She never owned enough cashmere to make her concerned for the future of the Kazakhstani mountain goat population. I was turning into someone else."
  • Page 126 of The Princess Diaries reads: "And it is sort of hard when all these beautiful, fashionable people are telling you how good you'd look in this and how much that would bring out your cheekbones. . . . And I kept telling myself, She's only doing this because she loves you. . . .".
  • Page 58 of Viswanathan's novel reads: In my defense, it was hard to be uptight and prickly while surrounded by beautiful, fashionable people all telling me how good I'd look in that shade and what this color would do to enhance my cheekbones."
  • Page 127 of The Princess Diaries reads: "Meanwhile, Paulo was picking up chunks of my hair and making this face and going, all sadly, It must go. It must all go. And it went. All of it. Well, almost all of it. I still have some like bangs and a little fringe in back."
  • Opal Mehta, page 57 reads: "The whole time, Frederic (I wondered if anyone dared call him Freddie) kept picking up long strands of my hair and making sad faces. It must go," he said. It must all go. And it went. Not all of it, because after four inches vanished, I started making panicked, whimpering sounds that touched even Frederic's heart . . ."

Viswanathan again declined to comment.[18]

On May 3, the Harvard Independent noted passages in Opal Mehta similar to Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier, another young adult novel about an Indian-American teenager. They cite "uncanny resemblance in imagery, sentence structure, and paragraph organization" between the two books.[19]

  • From page 13 of Born Confused:
"India. I had few memories of the place, but the ones I held were dream clear: Bathing in a bucket as a little girl. The unnerving richness of buffalo milk drunk from a pewter cup. My Dadaji pouring tea into a saucer so it would cool faster, sipping from the edge of the thin dish, never spilling a drop. A whole host of kitchen gods (looking so at home in the undishwashed unmicrowaved room). Meera Maasi crouching on the floor to sift the stones from rice. Cows huddled in the middle of the vegetable market, sparrows nesting on their backs. Hibiscus so brilliant they look like they’d caught fire. Children with red hair living in tires. A perpetual squint against sun and dust. The most delicious orange soda I’ve ever drunk — the cap-split hiss, and then the bubbling jetstream down a parched throat."
  • From pages 230-1 of Opal Mehta:
"I had only a few memories of India; the last time my family visited was six years ago, when I was in the sixth grade….Some impressions stood out sharply in my mind, still as clear as freshly developed Polaroids. I remembered the cold, creamy taste of fresh buffalo milk, Babaji pouring Ovaltine from one tin cup to another until froth bubbled thickly on the surface and it was cool enough to drink. I remembered shooting rockets made of coconut leaves off the rooftop terrace, and watching the beady-eyed green-and-yellow lizards that scuttled over the putty-colored walls after a hard rain. I remembered cold baths from a bucket with a plastic dipper, and sweet, oily badam halva from the nearby Chola hotel. Sometimes I still read the old Enid Blyton books, which were only available in countries of the former British empire. Most of all, I could close my eyes and return to the smells of sun and dust and refuse, mixed with sharp chilis, my grandmother’s soft rose talcum powder, and the heady, sweet scent of blossoming hibiscus."
  • From pages 92-3 of Born Confused:
“All day the house had smelled of spices, and now before our eyes lay the resulting combustion of all that kitchen chemistry. The feast my mother had conjured up was extravagant, and I realized how hungry I was; I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, at least not on a daily basis, but today the sight of it was pure poetry.
"Brown sugar roti and cloud-puff puris just itching to be popped. Coconut rice fluffed up over the silver pot like a sweet-smelling pillow. Samosas transparent, peas bundling just below the surface. Spinach with nymph-finger cloves of garlic that sank like butter on the tongue. A vat of cucumber raita, the two-percent yogurt thickened with sour cream (which my mom added when we had guests, though she denied it when asked; I’d seen the empty carton, not a kitten lick left). And the centerpiece: a deep serving dish of lamb curry, the pieces melting tenderly off the bone."
  • From page 130 of Opal Mehta:
"This year, fortunately, there wasn’t an egg in sight. Instead, the house had smelled of spices all day, and when we sat down at the dining room table, I nearly combusted at the sight of the extravagant feast my mom had conjured up. Usually I wasn’t a big fan of Indian food, but today I was suddenly starving. The table creaked with the weight of crisp, brown rotis and feather-light, puffy puris. A basket of my favorite kheema naan sat beside the clouds of cashew and sultana-studded coconut rice in an enormous pot. There was plump okra fried in oil and garlic till it melted like butter on the tongue, aloo curry studded with peppercorns and glistening chopped chilis, and a crock of raita, a cool, delicious mixture of yogurt and sour cream, bursting with finely chopped onions and cucumbers. The centerpiece was a deep dish of mutton curry, the meat (my mom only used halal bought from an Arab butcher in Edison) already falling off the bone."
  • From page 85 of Born Confused:
"Finally, I tore open the package they made me save for last. Inside, padded carefully between layers of tissue, was an unbelievably resounding salvar khamees, one of those Indian outfits consisting of loose-fitting pants with a long top and scarf, or dupatta. The deep crimson fabric screamed sanguinely open. A river of nearly neon gold dye wound noisily through its length. The salvar was ornately embroidered with gold and silver and garnet beads and little bells that made a racket even as I lifted it out of the box. All in all it was, in fact, so loud I could hear it. Heavy, too — funny how all those little driblets could add up."
  • From pages 125-6 of Opal Mehta:
"I looked at the multicolored swirl-patterned box hesitantly. In my past experience, gifts from Edison rarely boded well. And when I tore apart the layers of carefully packed tissue paper, I found an elaborate salwar kameez — loose pants, a long tunic-style top, and a trailing scarf, or dupatta. The salwar was a startling peacock-green, and embroidered so ornately with gold and silver threads and glittering beads that it made my eyes hurt. When I lifted it up, the room resounded to the tinkle of thousands of tiny golden bells. It was surprisingly heavy — all that jigna really added up — and it was the last thing in the world I ever wanted to wear."

As the Crimson noted, it is not clear the extent to which the similarity between Viswanathan's text and that in other books should be deemed plagiarism, and to what degree it can be explained by her use of tropes common to the "chick lit" genre.[18]

Some earlier writing by Viswanathan has come under scrutiny as well; she worked as an intern for The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, in 2003 and 2004, and the paper announced that it planned to hire a service to review all her writing for them to look for potential plagiarism.[20]

[edit] Fallout

Little, Brown had initially stood behind Viswanathan, but after the new allegations came to light, it recalled all copies of the novel and canceled Viswanathan's UK publicity tour. The publishing house initially indicated plans to release a revised version of the novel “to eliminate any inappropriate similarities.” [21] However, on May 2, 2006, Little, Brown released a statement from senior vice president Michael Pietsch saying "Little, Brown and Company will not be publishing a revised edition of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life by Kaavya Viswanathan, nor will we publish the second book under contract."[22] Earlier, Dreamworks stopped development of the movie.[23]

Cover of How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life.

[edit] Involvement of Alloy, a book-packaging company

The New York Times reported that Viswanathan shares a copyright with 17th Street Productions, now called Alloy, a book-packaging company. Book-packaging companies are hired by publishers to write or co-write novels on the basis of concepts given to them by their clients. In many cases, only the barest outline and character sketches are needed. The book-packaging company, with a staff of in-house writers, does the rest.[24]

Viswanathan has asserted that she is indeed the writer of the book, and any plagiarism she conducted was unconscious. Alloy has indicated that despite holding copyright, they were not involved in the writing of the manuscript.[citation needed]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Kaavya Emptor", Greg Atwan, The Harvard.
  2. ^ "Once-touted novel has uncertain future", Arizona Republic, April 28, 2006, accessed April 23, 2007. "Weems, who taught literature to Viswanathan when she was a junior at Bergen County Academies in New Jersey, remembered her as a gifted student and as the winner of a number of writing contests."
  3. ^ "Overshooting the mark; her fictional character is aiming for normal. 'Six-figure' sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan did her one better," The Record (Bergen County), NJ), April 9, 2006 Sunday, Living; Pg. F01, By Virginia Rohan
  4. ^ "Getting Into Harvard And Getting A Life," The Roanoke Times (Virginia), April 9, 2006 Sunday, Metro Edition, BOOKS; Pg. 6, Reviewed by Margaret Grayson
  5. ^ "Postcolonial Makeover For Harvard-Bound Girl," New York Observer, April 3, 2006, Culture; Books 4, Leon Neyfakh
  6. ^ "Smart Girls' Book Club: How Opal got her groove back," Chicago Sun Times, April 2, 2006 Sunday, Final Edition, Books; Debra Pickett; Pg. B8
  7. ^ "It's Pure 'opal'-Escence," New York Daily News, April 2, 2006 Sunday, Sports Final Edition, Sunday Now; Pg. 21, 284 words, By Sherryl Connelly
  8. ^ "The Saturday Read; Oh c'mon, getting into Harvard isn't that easy: How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life: A Novel", Kaavya Viswanathan Little, Brown" Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2006 Saturday, Calendar; Part E; Pg. 8, Thomas McGonigle
  9. ^ "Charming 'Opal' shows smart can be funny", Carol Memmott, USA Today, March 29, 2006.
  10. ^ "HOWMTF: How 'Opal' will make teen famous", Marilyn Bailey, The Boston Globe, April 17, 2006.
  11. ^ "Kaavya's $500,000 baby", Rituparna Som, Daily News and Analysis, April 10, 2006.
  12. ^ "A new name doing India proud abroad", Mandira Nayar, The Hindu, April 11, 2006.
  13. ^ "Student’s Novel Faces Plagiarism Controversy", David Zhou,, The Harvard Crimson, April 23, 2006
  14. ^ "Author McCafferty talks shop with Brick's Lit Chicks", Colleen Lutolf, Brick Township Bulletin, May 18, 2006.
  15. ^ Hyman, Vicki. "For new author, a difficult opening chapter", The Star-Ledger, April 25, 2006.
  16. ^ "In Internet Age, Writers Face Frontier Justice", Tom Zeller Jr., New York Times, May 1, 2006.
  17. ^ "A Second Ripple in Plagiarism Scandal", Dinitia Smith and Moto Rich, New York Times, May 2, 2006
  18. ^ a b c "‘Opal’ Similar to More Books", Paras D. Bhayani and David Zhou, The Harvard Crimson, May 2, 2006
  19. ^ "Yet More Suspicious Passages Found in Kaavya’s Opal Mehta", Jon Liu, Harvard Independent, May 3, 2006
  20. ^ "Harvard author faces further allegations of borrowing", Associated Press, May 2, 2006
  21. ^ "'Opal Mehta' Gone for Good; Contract Cancelled", Harvard Crimson, May 2, 2006.
  22. ^ "Publisher Cancels Deal With Young Author", Hillel Italie, Associated Press, May 2, 2006.
  23. ^ "Opal Mehta movie version canned", Los Angeles Times, April 28, 2006.
  24. ^ "Breaking Into the Juvenile Market as a Writer for Hire", Rachel Plummer, Absolute Write.

[edit] External links


Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaavya_Viswanathan"
Personal tools
Languages