Somehow this is the most depressing scandal in the recent spate of scandals. The rise and fall of Kaavya Viswanathan happened within the space of a few months, hardly a blink in the life of a teenage prodigy now just a teenager again. Little Brown is pulling How Opal Mehta got Kissed, got Wild and got a Life. I can’t work myself in a state of righteous indignation over the fact that Kaavya hijacked another author’s work; I’m focused on the fact that she was the only kid in a roomful of adults, packagers, agents, editors, publishers all of whom understand the consequences of joyriding at this level. Getting angry at Kaavya is like declaring war on Bolivia for trafficking in black market cigars.
Maybe I’m distracted by the subject matter of the novel, the life of a teenage girl, as written by a teenage girl packaged and designed for the marketplace by savvy grownups. Perhaps Kaavya felt a bit overwhelmed by the idea of writing a novel. Maybe she panicked. Panic is a natural response when confronting a task you don’t know how to complete, another brick in the wall. Meeting expectations is not the key to maturity, evaluating them is. Bright teens with impeccable credentials haven’t learned this lesson yet, and civilized societies protect the young from their dumber impulses, or they try to, which is why parents become handwringing wrecks during their children’s rite of passage.
I will retract my defense if Kaavya turns out to be a forty year old man from Elko Nevada who entered Harvard as an Indian-American girl from New Jersey. You can’t be too careful with literary scandals these days. Here’s looking at you kid, you got yourself tangled in the fame machine.
I agree with you completely, David. The word “bulldozed” comes to mind.
Lynne
AKA Wicked Witch of Publishing