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Published Wednesday, April 26, 2006 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

EATING UP KAAVYA

The media loves seeing 19-year-old Harvard student Kaavya Viswanathan get her comeuppance after signing a fat $500,000 book deal and earning who knows how much in movie rights for a book that, well, turns out to be largely copied. The Harvard Crimson broke the story over the weekend, and the Globe since has jumped all over it -- here, here, and here.

Which makes sense, since they wrote such a glowing profile of Kaavya just two months ago -- note the third paragraph: "No problem. While taking a full five-course load, Viswanathan banged out ''How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" in her free time. The book is done and due out in April, and Little, Brown is convinced it has signed up one of the hottest young talents in fiction. ''I still don't believe it, even now," Viswanathan said in an interview by the library fireplace in Winthrop House. ''It is so surreal."

That's one way to describe it.

You had to wonder how anyone thought this was a good idea in the first place, taking a teen's essays, putting it into a marketing machine, then foisting mounds of money and pressure on the teen -- all while she tries to study at Harvard. That's no excuse for her blatant copying. But methinks most in the media are not sympathetic at all (some out of sheer jealousy).

The Washington Post practically rolled over laughing in publishing this opening sentence yesterday: That long list of excuses authors have given for writing a book that turns out to contain parts of somebody else's book just got a little longer.