Posted Monday, April 24, 2006, The OG, arts

No sooner had The Online Gargoyle posted Devika Bagchi's review of “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed” than we found out that Sunday's Harvard Crimson contained an article accusing the book's author of plagiarizing several passages from novels published in 2001 and 2003.

The article, written by Crimson staff reporter David Zhou, can be found in its entirety here. The Crimson is Harvard's student newspaper.

Here are a few excerpts from Zhou's article:

“A recently-published novel by Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan '08, ‘How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,' contains several passages that are strikingly similar to two books by Megan F. McCafferty — the 2001 novel ‘Sloppy Firsts' and the 2003 novel ‘Second Helpings.'

“At one point, ‘Opal Mehta' contains a 14-word passage that appears verbatim in McCafferty's book ‘Sloppy Firsts.'

“In that example, McCafferty writes on page 6 of her first novel: ‘Sabrina was the brainy Angel. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: Pretty or smart. Guess which one I got. You'll see where it's gotten me.'

“Viswanathan writes on page 39 of her novel: ‘Moneypenny was the brainy female character. Yet another example of how every girl had to be one or the other: smart or pretty. I had long resigned myself to category one, and as long as it got me to Harvard, I was happy. Except, it hadn't gotten me to Harvard. Clearly, it was time to switch to category two.'

“The italics appear in the originals.”

According to the Crimson article, Viswanathan had no comment when she was reached Saturday night on her cell phone and asked about the similarities between her novel and McCafferty's books.

— Gargoyle staff