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The literary world is all abuzz with news that in writing her first book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, Kaavya Viswanathan lifted entire paragraphs from Megan McCafferty's first two books, and stuffed them into her novel.

Things took a turn for the worse yesterday, when Viswanathan offered up a frankly unbelievable apology:

In an e-mail message this afternoon, Ms. Viswanathan said that in high school she had read and loved the two books she is accused of borrowing from, 'Sloppy Firsts' and "Second Helpings," and that they "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, 'How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,' and passages in these books," the message went on.

(Surprised and upset!)

Calling herself a "huge fan" of Ms. McCafferty's work . . .

(Saying you're a big fan of the author you've plagiarized is a bit like a stalker claiming to be in love with the woman he's following around.)

. . . Ms. Viswanathan added, "I wasn't aware of how much I may have internalized Ms. McCafferty's words." She also apologized to Ms. McCafferty and said that future printings of the novel would be revised to "eliminate any inappropriate similarities."

(So here, she's basically saying: "Besides, when describing one of the characters I copied from her, I changed the gum she was chewing from Doublemint to Orbit . . . isn't that original enough for you? Jesus, what do you people want from me? After all, I was studying for the SAT's when I was writing the damn thing.")

Michael Pietsch, publisher of Little, Brown, said Ms. Viswanathan planned to add an acknowledgment to Ms. McCafferty in future printings of the book.

Future printings of the book? I think someone, somewhere, is in serious denial.

Although, it's fun to wonder what this acknowledgment might say: "Thanks to Ms. McCafferty, who provided many of the words used to write this book (although the plot was different, and I did change the wording some, and besides, it was all done totally subconsciously .) . . without you, it might never have been finished."

Lesson learned . . . plagiarism is bad, even if it does get you into Harvard.

Posted 25 April 2006 at 08:59 AM