"...a strong version of anxiety of influence"... can be detected in her work, says the Harvard English professor, discussing the plagiarism accusations levelled at "How Opal Mehta..." author Kaavya Viswanathan. He seems to be discussing a young girl allowing herself to be unintentionally influenced by another work in her desperate attempt not to be left behind. The psychoanalytic take on plain, fat, cheating.

I say that, but I have still not fully decided where I come down on this. There are many passages that are strikingly similar and also similar enough in context to be strong indications of plagiarism from a book called "Sloppy Firsts". There are others though, which are somewhat more ambiguous:

Opal Mehta, p14
The other thing about Marcus is that crackheaded girls who don't know any better think he's sexy. I don't see it. He's got dusty reddish dreads that a girl could never run her hands through. His eyes are always half-shut. His lips are usually curled into a semi-smile, like he's in on a big joke that's being played on you but you don't know it yet.

Sloppy Firsts, p23
Just about every girl, from the A list HBz to the stoner hoochies, thought he was sexy. The weird thing was, I didn't see it. He had too-long shaggy brown hair that fell into his eyes, which were always half-shut. His mouth was always curled into a half smile, like he knew about some big joke that was about to be played on you.

True they are undeniably similar. But consider for a second the fact that every chicklit teen book from here to eternity has the character "Hot Cocky Boy who you don't like yet, but will". Every one of these characters is described in the same way - list their physical traits, the fact that you don't see it (yet, but probably will, because all your friends do), and the fact that they are arrogant and smirky. Because in the teen world, that is actually a turn-on in itself. This is the archetypical introduction to this character, and many will find similarities. There's only so many ways to write this, when the entire idea and genre is unoriginal and repeating. Think about all the teen OC-like melodramas on TV - how many of them have a character almost exactly like Dylan from Beverly Hills, down to dialogue and storyline examples?

Like I said, I'm not sure whether I want to draw and quarter the poor girl yet. Because I do think of her as a "poor girl", and I'll tell you why. This book is another in a line of Alloy projects, and I knew even last year that there would be problems with it. Alloy, let's not forget, is the consumer-driven marketing genius which owns just about any youth-related venture you can think of, even to social networking sites like Sconex (a facebook or myspace like server, for high school students). They also own 17th Street, the book-packager behind Gossip Girl, A-List and a host of other ditto projects. These companies live and die for product placement opportunities, and when an aspiring teenage author happened to stumble into their laps, they snatched her up and began grooming her to be their next megaphone into the teen life. Alex Beam of the Globe actually hit this on the head, and noticed that the copyright is shared with Alloy, who helped "flesh out" the concept of the book. Someone connected with the publisher has already said that Viswanathan's work was not edited prior to Alloy buying the rights to the work - looks like there is a good chance Alloy might come out being blamed for the lifts.

On a forum discussing the Opal Mehta controversy - "Huh. But what's going on here? What makes a book like this come to "life"? What do packagers actually do? More to come."

What do book packagers actually do? There's many things - one of them being pitching ideas for books to publishers designed to reach an agenda. Take Gossip Girl for example. The idea was to find a new way to get into the teen market, and the suggestion was to combine "gossip" plus "blogs" plus "sex and drugs" to create a new literary craze. Where did they find Cecily Van Zeigesar, the author? Well she worked for them in the marketing field, as did Lisi Harrison, who writes "The Clique". "Zoey Dean", the author of "The A-List" is actually a pseudonym for a writing team whose identities are still being disputed, although I suspect, as do many, that the team is composed of Cherie Bennet and her husband. Ann Brashares, writer of the Pants series (and I am loathe to bring her into this, because I secretly love those books) was until quite recently the Co-President of 17th Street. Too many threads. Now, after the merger with Allow, the two comphanies together have a finger in just about every pot, with the idea of making money off teenagers. An excellent business strategy, since this demographic, with their constant preoccupation with fitting in, are always ready to drop dimes on the next it thing.

And in her own way, I think Viswanathan's embroilment in this fiasco is another example of the lengths people will go to fit in and become known for something special. Big bad wolf Alloy comes along with its half a million dollars and promise to be famous... well the rest is history.

The recent protests throughout the Islamic world of the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that appeared in a Danish newspaper have left me reeling, and with mixed feelings. In a recent trip to Iran I would watch every day repeated mocking of certain figures and nations, most prominently American President George Bush, shown at times in animated music videos confessing all his sins while doing a belly-dance. In light of that, I found the exaggerated reactions to the caricatures hypocritical.

At the same time I can understand that on some levels the situations are not comparable. The caricatures not only mocked the Prophet Mohammad, but did so in a way that perpetuates and re-emphasizes a prominent and damaging stereotype about Muslims: the relationship between Islam and terrorism. That, combined with situations such as the war on Iraq; the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and, no doubt, other prisons; the disproportionate lack of attention to Palestinian victimizations; the mounds of literature and media attention insisting that acts of terror and violence are things that occur inherently within Islam, create a very volatile atmosphere and a people who constantly feel frustrated and demoralized. In this context, the caricatures were a sort of provocation that is unique and distasteful. It seems that there is a lack of empathy and foresight that is truly disturbing - certainly, the newspapers knew that such a provocation would occur, since these particular cartoons were reprinted many times. It may have behooved the editors of this paper to consider that this action was probably not the most helpful in an already unstable situation.

Therefore, I can understand the emotive nature of the protests - although I will say that the burning of the two embassies was inappropriate and unjustifiable (as well as appearing ironic to other parties - is a violent reaction on the part of Muslim groups really the way to repair our socially-constructed reputation?). As well, the recent renaming of Danish pastries in Iran to "pastries of the roses of the Prophet Mohammad" is frankly ridiculous.

I can say that I found the cartoons distasteful, personally. But I absolutely do not believe the editors should retract and apologize, and I feel the protestors should not expect one. It may not have been the most sensitive publication, but in no way was it illegitimate.