December 04, 2006

• Sorry if this is old news to British monkeys; as a huge fan, I was stunned to read this.
• It's The Google.
• McEwan told The Times last night ... that it was almost impossible for a writer not to face accusations of copying at some point. That's bullshit.
• McEwan said: "When you write a historical novel you do depend on other writers. I have spoken about Lucilla Andrews countless times from a public plaftform. It has always been a very open matter." He's being very arrogant & disingenuous about it. Doesn't help his case. I think every good writer tries *not* to have their text be similar to other writers. If you have to depend on source material, you go out of your way to make your work read different. Sounds like he's a hack.
• Good book, though - if somewhat tragic.

• Vanessa Holt, (Lucilla Andrews's) agent, said that she had found McEwan’s behaviour discourteous and disappointing. “She wasn’t approached for permission to use her autobiography — I think she would have been very happy to have been consulted.”

  She'd probably have been delighted. This could have worked out a whole lot better if he'd been honest enough to contact her.
• My apologies if this is stale news to simians in Britain; as a strong devotee, I was surprised to learn of this.
• Sounds like he's a hack. He's most definitely not a hack. Eminently clear if you've ever read him. Sounds like the charges against him have stemmed from a book that has a plot similar to an earlier book (in the case of his first novel), which if it constituted plagiarism would mean half the books in existence are works of plagiarism, and (in this case) some small details which, you could make the argument, are the result of close research. I'd need to see much more to condemn the guy. "What I did was to use whatever I could of eyewitness accounts and sift and embroider them into the minds of characters," McEwan says. Doesn't sound unreasonable, or wrong, to me. Barring more damning evidence, I default to Gladwell's stance, in the first link: "The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences."
• McEwan told The Times last night ... that it was almost impossible for a writer not to face accusations of copying at some point. That's bullshit. Jesus fuck.. there are a number of ways of approaching your comment. Here is the approach I shall take. I will accept that McEwan told the Times this that or the other, and further I also accept that in that interview he made the claim being indi.. oh bollocks to all that. Of course writers face that accusation, whats more is that it is beyond any reasonable doubt true. That's why art is copyrighted and not patented. Ideas in art don't need to be non-obvious, it don't matter if there is prior "art". It's all derivative. All that being said, a mate of mine read his magnus opus 'Saturday' and said it was shit. So yeah, the guy is a posh twat. I'd personally like a word with him. With my... words mouth. Also note whilst all I've said here is currently true, he did copy someone else's work a little too obviously for the teacher to ignore. What a posh twat. *begins knitting a voodoo doll of this McEwan fellow*
• Sounds like he's a hack. And you've never read him.
• Wow. I mean, I have to be upfront and say I mostly hated Atonement so I could be biased. But damn, that's not good stuff on McEwan's part. I'm very okay (more than okay) with rewriting ideas and retelling stories and creating new things out of the old; at the same time, you don't get to take a person's autobiography and take sentences wholesale (look at the comparisons in the 'defense' link) and make it into an 'original' novel. Not without telling me that's what you did (in my case, so that I can go read the original and decide whether or not I want to read his modified version). This isn't law and strict rules, this is respect, for readers and for the authors of other works. In my POV, he lied to me about his effort in creating the novel - and I wouldn't care if he had just properly told me in the first place. Bah.
• I really think Ian McEwan is among the best writers of our time. His prose is just so good: it has old-fashioned qualities I've sorta grown used to doing without in most contemporary authors. It's like wandering through the chipboard treasury of Ikea and suddenly finding somebody quietly producing stuff whose craftsmanship would be recognised by, you know, Chippendale. Plagiarists do not credit their source: he credited this woman.
• Ibid on livii. And for clairification, I've only read Amsterdam, and wasn't at all impressed. I figured it was a failing on may part, given how everyone was swooning over the thing.
• CR, Amsterdam is very meh (in my opinion), but Atonement really sucked me in. And I guess that's it, the brilliance of Atonement was the plot and the characters, not the medical descriptions. Here's a fun compare and contrast.
• I don't like his writing. Not enough robots and interdimensional space beings.
• a mate of mine read his magnus opus 'Saturday' and said it was shit Always the best way to formulate your own passionate opinions.
• Alright, Amsterdam's not that hot. But The Child in Time? Black Dogs?
• HawthorneWingo yeap, my mate thinks you are on to something with that one. Though he also felt 'The Line of Beauty' was RockTastic, so I take his opinions very seriously, very bookish. livii, I concur.
• Ah, c'mon, people! These are the books! I'm tellin' ya!
• This reminds me of the time Booker Prize Winner Ian McEwan under fire. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, winner (2002) of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, currently being developed into a film, came under fire on charges of plagiarism
• Having the same plot or concepts is not plagiarism. Neither is having almost the same sentence every once in a while. Those examples in the defense link make it clear there's no plagiarism. That's like claiming plagiarism when you hear "Bush is very stupid" because you once said "Bush is really stupid" since hey, it's the same plot and almost the same sentence.
• Wait, somebody thinks Bush is stupid?
• And to back up darling, I'll say the following: The Comfort of Strangers is deliciously creepy, WAY better than the unintentionally hilarious film of that book starring Christopher Walken; Enduring Love is gripping; Atonement is the novel for which McEwan SHOULD have won the Booker Prize; and The Innocent is one of the best spy novels I've ever read. But, no, McEwan might not be for you if you believe Neil Gaiman and William Gibson are our greatest living writers.
• When the same plot and the same lines are used to evoke a certain feeling/mood/storyline and used in lieu of creating one's own words and ideas, then it is something that should not happen. The defense link shows exact lines reused, in the same context in the two published stories. The Bush example is nonsensical and has no bearing on this argument at all. It does appear that McEwan credited the author as an inspiration; however, if he used direct lines from the other source, those should be marked out and specifically acknowledged. I read McEwan's book with the anticipation that it was his work; if it was "his, but with some help" tell me that in advance. Again, it's not enough to put me off the book entirely, but it is the honest and correct thing to do. "Inspiration" and direct quoting are entirely different things. And HawthorneWingo, I don't know who you're digging at with the Gaiman and Gibson references, but get off the high horse, would you? Newsflash: people can dislike McEwan and still like other good literature, shock, horror, dismay, etc. etc.
• It's not direct quoting, although I'd say in the three (3) disputed sentences he's sailed a little closer to the original than may have perhaps been desirable. This is not, however, an academic work, and the way he's acknowledged his source is entirely appropriate in the context of fiction.
• I don't know who you're digging at with the Gaiman and Gibson references People who think Gaiman and Gibson are our greatest living writers. Just like I said. Inspired by Chy's comment. And for the record I enjoy Gibson and, to a lesser degree, Gaiman, myself. So take a pill and relax.
• Also please note that your argument about context is, well, most likely wrong. Per McEwan, in the NYT: '“I have used her account of certain things, certainly training” of nurses. His depiction of wartime, he added, however, had been “very much diffused through the anxieties and character of the young girl, Briony.”' Seems like instant-new-context to me, quite possibly; not having read the source material, though, I don't really know. And unless you've read the source material vs. McEwan's use of it, you don't really know, either. What doesn't seem reasonable based on the 3 tiny appropriations of detail cited in these charges is to paint McEwan as being unequivocably a plagiarist.
• Of the three comments, the second one where all the names seem to line up looks bad. But then again if these are the only three cases, this definitely doesn't belong in the same kettle of fish as Kaavya Viswanathan. I haven't read Atonement but it's on my list.
• Definitely in the "not hack, actually probably one of our greatest living writers" camp here. The passage in The Child in Time where he describes how, in certain upper class, political circles, it was not only fashionable but indicative of one's verbal prowess to never "give away" the gender of the Prime Minister by using pronouns in any discourse all the while making it seem completely natural and effortless taught me a thing or two about writing panache/bravado. The "wink" was, of course, that this was exactly what he was doing, but you weren't aware of it until the end of the passage. I agree, as with just about everyone else, that Amsterdam was not the book that should have won the prize. The opening chapter of Enduring Love remains one of the most sublime mixture of beauty, horror and mystery ever committed to paper (imho). Incidentally, while there's talk of Atonement (the movie) possibly bringing McEwan the household-name-recognition status that he deserves, the most beguiling, haunting film adaptation of any of his works was First Love, Last Rites, based on the titular short story but completely adapted to a Southern US setting.
• I'm derailing my own thread here... I have to say, as much as I wish it weren't so, it doesn't look good for old Ian. As many others have noted, while 3 snippets does not a plagiarist make, as StoryBored pointed out, the bit with the names makes me squirm a bit. As someone in academia, I have to say that at the very least that it doesn't set a good example, and, valid or not, leaves a blemish.
• Sly's dead on; I hate to keep at this, but you'll note that I never called McEwan a plagiarist. I'm not going to say all his books should be pulled or he needs to abase himself or anything like that. I haven't pilloried him and of course I don't know exactly if he plagiarized (but then, you don't know that he didn't on that logic, HawthorneWingo). But I feel the borrowing goes too far and I would prefer if he had properly cited it and made it clearer that he took so much of the work. It puts a stain on McEwan's writing and reputation. I feel skeptical about him now, and that's unfortunate. It didn't have to happen. Yeah, it's not a Viswathanan, and it's not A Million Little Pieces, but if the guy's supposed to be one of our greatest living writers, either make it clear you're retelling a story - which I enjoy - or write your own story. It seems pretty simple.
• I feel skeptical about him now, and that's unfortunate. I agree. I was just trying to keep the skepticism from growing out of control.
• I think everyone is getting bogged down in the three short snippets. Referring to the Times article, McEwan denies the accusation that Ms Andrews was the basis for one of the main characters. So what's being suggested is that he took her autobiography and used her as a character in his book. As noted, the only way to make a judgement on this is to read both. Absent that, I'd pay attention to the agent's statement about McEwan's “disappointing” failure to reveal the scale of his debt to her client.
• Sorry if this is old news to British monkeys; as a huge fan, I was stunned to read this. posted by sly_polyglot at 05:08PM UTC on December 04, 2006 My apologies if this is stale news to simians in Britain; as a strong devotee, I was surprised to learn of this. posted by The Underpants Monster at 06:39PM UTC on December 04, 2006 Quite, quite! I should like to express my humble appreciation for the translation, as it were. Carry on, carry on.
• I believe it was Lionel Trilling who said immature artists imitate, mature artists steal (though I pretend it was me).
• That's like claiming plagiarism when you hear "Bush is very stupid" because you once said "Bush is really stupid" since hey, it's the same plot and almost the same sentence To plagiarise E M Forster, "Bush is very stupid" is not a plot. "Bush is very stupid, but he won two Presidential elections" - that's a plot.
• Also it's a well known fact that Ian McEwan steals all his ideas from a sci-fi author called Ian M McEwan.
• I once wrote that to copy one person's work is called plagiarism but to copy from several is called research.
• Bush sucks.
• But he has trouble swallowing
• Saturday is one of the best things I've read all year.
• Heh, roryk, had to read that one twice.
• Pynchon backs McEwan.
• >>His prose is just so good: it has *old-fashioned qualities*... And now we know why!