I'm oddly piqued by recent news that Bloomsbury is canceling paperback release of Judith Kelly's memoir ROCK ME GENTLY, for numerous plagiarized passages. She supposedly has a photographic memory, and accidentally copied full passages from her brain's database, originally penned by, among others, Charlotte Bronte and Graham Greene.
Here are some shocking examples.
What if she's telling the truth? Bloomsbury made the right choice, but I for one see how it could happen. Ever try to hum an original tune? It's hard, if you have a memory for music. I'm just glad I have no memory for text...
4 comments:
I know. Especially the dialogue she swiped from Greene...did her memory of experiences get mixed up with her memory of reading?
Hi, Anne. Here's a great essay on plagiarism, an article by Malcolm Gladwell that originally ran in the New Yorker. Gladwell's quite the contrarian, but even here I find his point fascinating: that we should let up on the plagiarism prosecutions.
S, thanks for the link.
A
Judith:
Thanks so much for chiming in with your side of the story. This must have been a harrowing discovery for you. I, for one, don't have any reason to think you're lying.
Since I posted this, I've had similar experiences (though WAY less public) as I've reread some fiction (by others) I hadn't looked at in awhile. Here and there I notice things that I have since unconsciously "stolen" in my own work. Character names, scenes, plots. It's a little frightening what the brain can do with all the information in there.
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