A second ripple in plagiarism scandal
By DINITIA SMITH and MOTOKO RICH
May 2, 2006
The New York Times
Fresh passages in
the novel by a Harvard sophomore, whose book was pulled from stores
last week after she acknowledged plagiarizing portions of it, appear to
be copied from a second author.
At least three portions in the book, "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got
Wild, and Got a Life," by Kaavya Viswanathan, bear striking
similarities to writing in "Can You Keep a Secret?," a chick-lit novel
by Sophie Kinsella.
The New York Times was alerted to the similarities by a phone call from
a reader.
The plots of the two books are different — Ms. Kinsella's novel is
about a young British woman who unwittingly confesses her secrets to a
man on a plane, only to discover he is the American head of the company
for which she works, while Ms. Viswanathan's is about an
Indian-American girl struggling to get into Harvard. But the phrasing
and structure of some passages is nearly identical.
In one scene in Ms. Kinsella's book, which was published by Dial Press,
the main character, Emma, comes upon two of her friends "in a
full-scale argument about animal rights," and one says, "The mink like
being made into coats."
In Ms. Viswanathan's book, Opal, the heroine, encounters two girls
having "a full-fledged debate over animal rights."
"The foxes want to be made into scarves," one of them says.
There are echoes in another scene in which one of Ms. Kinsella's
characters threatens another, "And we'll tell everyone you got your
Donna Karan coat from a discount warehouse shop."
In Ms. Viswanathan's version, Opal threatens another girl, Priscilla,
saying, "I'll tell everyone that in eighth grade you used to wear a 'My
Little Pony' sweatshirt to school every day."
Details and descriptions are also similar. Jack, the love interest in
Ms. Kinsella's novel has a scar on his hand; so does Sean, the romantic
hero in "Opal." Jack has "eyes so dark they're almost black," so does
Sean.
The passages are clustered in the final third of Ms. Viswanathan's book.
Sophie Kinsella is the pen name of Madeleine Wickham, the British
author of the popular "Shopaholic" series. "Can You Keep a Secret?,"
Ms. Kinsella's first novel published in hardcover in the United States,
came out here in 2004, more than a year before Ms. Viswanathan began
writing "Opal," and the book spent six weeks on the New York Times
hardcover fiction best-seller list.
The copying from Ms. Kinsella's book does not seem to be as extensive
as Ms. Viswanathan's borrowing from two novels by Megan McCafferty,
"Sloppy Firsts" and "Second Helpings," both published by Crown, a
division of Random House. In that case, Crown contends that more than
40 passages were copied from Ms. McCafferty's books.
Ms. Viswanathan acknowledged plagiarizing from Ms. McCafferty but said
that it was "unconscious and unintentional."
Ms. Viswanathan said she would have no comment on the latest
allegations, as did Michael Pietsch, senior vice president and
publisher of Little, Brown, who last Thursday announced he was pulling
"Opal" from bookstores. Ms. Viswanathan's agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh
of the William Morris Agency, was traveling and could not be reached.
When told of the similarities between the two books, Stuart Applebaum,
a spokesman for Random House, which owns Dial Press, said: "If this
latest allegation is true, it is very disturbing, but it would be
inappropriate to make any further comment until we have an opportunity
to thoroughly review the matter."
In an e-mail message, a spokeswoman for Alloy Entertainment, the book
packager responsible for several hit series of young adult novels that
also helped Ms. Viswanathan develop the concept for "Opal" and craft
its first four chapters, said: "We are continuing to refrain from
offering comment on any matter relating to Kaavya at this time."
Ms. Kinsella could not be reached. Her American agent, Kim Witherspoon,
declined to comment.