How Kaavya Got Pilloried and Was Frustrated....

Revisiting Opal Mehta: Legally Blonde

In 2006 Ian McEwan was accused of plagiarism; specifically that a passage in Atonement (2001) closely echoed a passage from a memoir, No Time for Romance, published in 1977 by Lucilla Andrews. McEwan acknowledged using the book as a source for his work.[21][22] McEwan had included a brief note at the end of Atonement, referring to Andrews’s autobiography, among several other works.[23] Writing in The Guardian in November 2006, a month after Andrews' death, McEwan professed innocence of plagiarism while acknowledging his debt to the author.[24][25][26] Several authors defended him, including John Updike, Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Thomas Keneally, Zadie Smith, and Thomas Pynchon.

Around the same time, a young Indian-Amreican writer, Kaavya Viswanathan was being pilloried for plagiarism:

How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life is a young adult novel by Kaavya Viswanathan, an Indian-American woman who wrote it just after she graduated from high school. Its 2006 debut was highly publicized, but the book was withdrawn after allegations that portions had been plagiarized from several sources. Viswanathan apologized and said any similarities were "completely unintentional and unconscious." All shelf copies of Opal Mehta were ultimately recalled and destroyed by the publisher, and Viswanathan's contract for a second book was canceled.

Because she is an Indian-American? Because she is young and because it is her first book? Or, god(dess) forbid, because she was a ‘girrl’?

One of the initial responses to the book was (http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/reviews/2006-03-29-how-opal-mehta_x.htm):

“How Opal Mehta Got Kissed is a hysterically funny train wreck of a story littered with mean girls, drunken parties, bad boys and enough chandelier earrings to light up the Harvard lawn.

I'll bet you a copy of Laguna Beach: The Complete First Season and a gold lamé Miu Miu bag that you won't read a sweeter, funnier, more charming book this year.”

Soon after, author Megan McCafferty accused Kaavya of copying some text from her books – the names of which I forget. And the whole of America started pouring vitriol over the young writer. It is not important to go into the details of all that jealous, bigoted, uninformed criticism; suffice it to make three main points about it:
1. There was no clear copyright infringement; otherwise, Megan McCafferty and her publishers would have definitely sued.
2. As for a broader moral issue of plagiarism, we have seen in the first instance involving Ian McEwan, that it is no big deal. Writers routinely borrow ideas from one another, and all of western literature has origins in Homer!
3. How Opal… is not chick lit. It is an intelligent reversal of the famous Hollywood flick “Legally Blonde”.

Poor Kaavya says in her book that nobody argues with success; ironically, in her own case, her success goaded so much criticism – which was vituperative and mean. It was bigoted. They questioned her morals; just stopped short of calling her a call girl.

Unfortunately, for us and for her, she never attempted a second book. Not so far. But she is apparently doing well in life – studying, more irony here, law. I hope she will one day sue all these critics for damages. And then go on to write another book.

There was one sane voice (Bill Poser), which spoke In Defense of Kaavya Viswanathan:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003068.html

Come on Kaavya, give us more.