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Exposed: A Packaged Princess of Chic Lit |
The
Warren Adler E-Sheet 53
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Exposed: A Packaged Princess of Chic Lit
 For all those who dream of spending their
lives sustained by the creative act of writing
fiction, of telling stories out of the
mysterious threads of their imaginings, of
pursuing a calling that rises from their
deeply held gut instincts about their mission
as living creatures, of garnering respect from
those among us who quest for understanding and
truth, who hunger to replicate the powerful
literary impact of the enduring great writers
of great books, the story of
Kaavya Viswanathan, the 19-year-old
alleged writer of
How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a
Life must induce nausea and disgust.
Poor Kaavya is a packaged princess of
chic lit, created out of the writing
factory of
Alloy Entertainment, a so-called book
packager who has found success at
manufacturing formula books in collusion with
respectable publishers whose fierce pursuit of
the bottom line has found these
books-by-committee folks a lucrative profit
center.
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I reserve my high dudgeon for the cynical
fools of the media who, either
deliberately or stupidly, promoted Kaavya,
hailing her work as the emergence of a
great new young literary talent. |
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She was heralded, by no less a traditional
authority than
The New York Times, as a second coming
of youthful talent; a discovery to be welcomed
and lionized. The Times anointed her at
first, only to discover that her
attention-grabbing ploy was a big fib.
Whether they knew this in advance is a truth
up for grabs. They have tried to undo the
canard by a savage, rearguard action designed
to imply that they had been had.
Every nuance of the aftermath, including
excerpts from the blogosphere and additional
accusations of plagiarism, is gleefully
reported in an effort to erase the naïveté of
anointing a literary fraud.
The Alloy people and little Kaavya got
themselves caught in the ringer for
plagiarizing, in forty different places, the
words of another author – presumably a real
one,
Megan McCafferty, whose books have found
some traction in the marketplace. To add more
fuel to the fire, there is some evidence that
Kaavya’s novel plagiarized in more subtle
ways from yet another book
Can You Keep a Secret? by
Sophie Kinsella.
It is not my intention to denounce publishing
profits, imaginative marketing ploys or the
books-by-committee practices of book
packagers, an enterprise that has been going
on since time immemorial. As a boy, I couldn’t
get enough of the packaged lad books like
the Hardy Boys,
Bomba the Jungle Boy,
The Boy Allies and others, while the other
gender reveled in the "written by committee"
books that produced
Nancy Drew,
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and many
others.
I reserve my high dudgeon for the cynical
fools of the media who, either deliberately
or stupidly, promoted Kaavya, hailing her
work as the emergence of a great new young
literary talent. It makes my blood boil when
I think of the legions of literary wannabes
working their hearts out in isolation or
taking creative writing courses in the nearly
two hundred universities, some costing as
much as one hundred thousand dollars for the
full program, to suddenly be confronted with
the real skinny on how so-called literary
reputations are made out of thin air and
bullshit.
And what of the dreamers who aspire to
literary heights, alone and unsung, as they
apply their minds and imaginations to write
novels that they hope will bring them literary
glory and the funds to sustain their passion?
Kaavya was tailor-made for the publicity hook,
third world antecedents, nineteen and still in
college – a chic lit natural. The Alloy guys
found her, helped manufacture her book, talked
the
Little, Brown people into the perfect
promotional device, got the naive media hooked
on the premise of a new literary discovery,
and voila, a star is born. Unfortunately their
quality control broke down and they were
waylaid by dumb plagiarism.
In today’s world of overblown hype and
celebrity worship, calling this a fraud might
be too strong an accusation from a legal point
of view, although the publisher of the
McCafferty books used their noodle to get
Kaavya’s book trashed and removed from
bookstore shelves. Of course, Little, Brown
allegedly made the decision to deep six the
book, a ploy to wipe some of the egg off their
faces. But then, swift capitulation is
expected from the French, who have recently
taken over ownership of the once venerable
Little, Brown. In this case, they made
surrender almost credible.
To compound the dopiness, poor Kaavya got a
second chance at the media trough – an
opportunity to explain herself to the press
and national media, offering lame excuses like
having "internalized" the McCafferty books and
portraying herself as a victim rather than the
perpetrator of a very obvious conspiracy. In
this case even "gotcha" gains respectability.
Of course, the Alloy people can only muster
shock at the goings on, as if they weren’t
part of the conspiracy, especially since they
share the copyright with Kaavya and who knows
how much of the royalty advance. Nobody is
saying what happened to all that dough. My
recommendation is that it should go to
indigent and beleaguered writers through the
good offices of the
Authors’ Guild and
Pen.
I don’t cry for poor Kaavya. She had her
fifteen minutes of fame.
But I do cry for the legions of aspiring
writers of the imagination who try their
damnedest to carve out a career in novel
writing, people of real talent, who
unfortunately get nudged aside by the
realities of the publishing business –
entities now owned by conglomerates that must
operate at the largesse of bean counters. Of
course, even a rant like this, has become a
cliché and will not make a particle of
difference in the way the publishing industry
works.
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It’s nice to contemplate the possibilities
of real talent rising randomly to
challenge and excite the imagination. |
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As for the reader, what does it matter if
they lap up these pre-packaged little
formulaic entertainments? Like most packaged
entertainment that inundates the popular
culture, the behind-the-scenes tempest has
little relevance. One might say that, at the
very least, these products get young people
to read, which is not a bad thing. Higher
aspirations like offering insight, artistry
and, perhaps, wisdom and greater
understanding of the human condition, are not
presently in vogue. Perhaps they never were,
but it’s nice to contemplate the
possibilities of real talent rising randomly
to challenge and excite the imagination.
My argument is designed to perforate the
gullibility of the poor innocents who
actually believe the spoon fed hype they get
from what used to be respected purveyors of
information like The New York Times,
who once upon a time really lived up to their
slogan "All the News that’s Fit to Print."
Unfortunately the old, grey lady has
succumbed to galloping senility. Now all the
cosmetic changes and fluff fill its pages.
Making a literary heroine out of poor Kaavya
is, beside simply dishonest, shameful and
insulting, especially to "real writers."
But then, high dudgeon aside, the use of
anonymous sources and lack of attribution is
a first cousin to plagiarism and a practice
very much alive and well in the Times’
canon.
Of course, the Times is not the only
culprit, but they serve as the obvious
example since it operates in the heart of the
New York publishing world and now benefits
from an advertising binge of full page color
ads hawking books. Other outlets have
fallen into line and are now concentrating on
the rebuttal strategy of righteous
indignation, bloody sword in hand.
For we writers who really write our own books,
we can take some satisfaction in seeing a
literary fraud exposed. Unfortunately, the
symptoms of our disgust linger as we briefly
turn away from our creative isolation to
confront the ugly underbelly of the publishing
business.
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