Posts by stephen clover
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Um this makes me really uncomfortable. If it's true then we need facts not rumour. Leave rumour and innuendo for the MSM we should have higher standards.
What about "rumour", though. As differentiated by quote marks, often performed with fingers on hands of the speaker.
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So I heard a "rumour" on the weekend -- and it's not the first time that I have heard it, and from sources as reputable as you would want -- that Witi Ihimaera "farms out" the grunt work of writing his novels to a collection of minions*. He supplies the plot/narrative framework, and they flesh it out with the words.
* Insert protogés, disciples, apprentices, whatever.
Several questions/points come to mind, if indeed this is true:
[1] Is Witi taking the fall for one of the minions' sloppy work?
[2] If so, it could explain the less-than-satisfactory response by he, Auckland Uni, and Penguin.
[3] This rather complicates the notion of "authorship" and name/brand that seems to be a central concern in the arguments of those baying about this evil known as plagiarism.
[4] Equally, this encourages me in my own quest to re-determine the nature of authorship and the ownership of sequences of letters and punctuation marks as a far-less pedantic concept.Is it true? Is this a common practice, does anyone know? Amongst writers of the Historical Fiction genre?
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"Witi Ihimaera to buy back book" yada yada.
Really? Surely, actually, Penguin recalls book, pulps everything, and invoices Ihimaera against his advance/fee/royalties. The same thing? Yes, but no..... nice spin.
Also, in an attempt to clarify a point for myself, at an academic institution do the same, or different, standards re. plagiarism apply to work created in the academic context -- say an English Lit essay -- vs. the creative context -- say a piece of creative writing, or a script in a Drama course?
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Jolisa, I think you are poking fun at me, but I was serious. You're clearly vastly more qualified to comment than I am. What I was really getting at was that we are likely talking at odds since FWIW I am pretty sure I don't believe in the possibility of true originality or objectivity and then what you, and Cauchi also sez vis:
a horror of inadvertently plagiarising other people's work
Add the very real possibility, especially in writing, of unconsciously repeating something you've come across previously, and things are very murky indeed.
I ultimately just feel like this idea that writing has about itself, and that its readers has, of AUTHENTICITY is just a pretense.
(Be sure I am talking about 'creative' writing, not academic work).
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Jolisa:
That's what the good ones who have a horror of inadvertently plagiarising other people's work do, anyway.
I'm having a hard time with this, in the context of modern thought about originality, influence, determinism, nature v. nurture, subjectivity v. objectivity and so on. I can hardly believe that such an almost arbitrary 'standard', a physical act albeit with strong overtones of the figurative, is deemed to make a difference. (You DID mean it literally, didn't you?) It's almost quaint. I do however have utmost respect for and will have to defer to your obvious expertise! Still baffled, though...
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I'm always surprised when people post something on the internet and then discover they don't have absolute control over it.
So am I. But before you start racing around and flashing your Internet Society membership cards and congratulating each other -- it was a dig. Read Cauchi's words again in the voice of GRUMPY OLD MAN 1.
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Them's fightin' words, mister
Yes, I know. But everyone has their own tastes don't they. Did somebody (upthread) mention Barbara Kingsolver? *choke* *gag* *falls about laughing at own wit* *etc.*
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The point, my dear Mr. Clover
And my response, my most darling Craig, is to point out that Ihimaera is a shitty writer, that the historical novel is mostly a worthless (sub-)genre, and to wonder why you would bother considering buying it in the first place.
If my next PAR piece contains substantial unattributed quotes from other people's work -- not homages or paraphrases or post-modern pastiches but raw, bleeding lifts -- what are my odds of getting fired?
What do you consider the greater crime? Quoting? Or not correctly attributing?
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she talked to other historical writers and they said no, what you do is do your reading, and then make sure those texts are off your desk before you start writing, specifically so you don't use the exact same words, but put them in your own.
.. And if you talked to the Master Plumber's Guild, or whatever the hell its called, they'd tell you that what they do is turn up, do the job, and leave. Under no circumstances would they concede that they might go through your underwear in the laundry hamper. My point of course is that OF COURSE the other historical writers say that. But why would anyone believe them? All but a few tradespeople cut corners. They just hope not to get caught.
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It's kind of simple, really. This is about taking credit for a skill of writing, when what one has actually demonstrated is the skill of cutting and pasting.
Actually, I'm not sure that it is. Almost anyone who writes historical fiction is going to cut and paste, tweak, and put it into the voice (or thoughts) of a character. And (presumably) credit the source. What Witi Ihimaera appears to have done is:
(1) cut and paste,
(2) tweak to a greater or lesser degree,
(3) put the words into the voice or thoughts of characters, including in some cases apparently the wrong ones,
(4) omit to credit all sources.So, surely the point is that Ihimaera has made a hash of historical novel-writing. He has demonstrated his limitations as a writer. The error has been compounded by sloppy bibliography-compiling and bad (sub-)editing. In the context, the issue of plagiarism is in fact a non-issue. A simple review could (and has) pointed out this this is a bad novel. Jolisa's Listener piece has provided proof. End of story?
All these cries of FOUL and overly-sentimental descriptions of blood running cold, scalp tingling, grief at the shock horror discovery of oh god say it's not true PLAGIARISM, and so on, are getting a bit overdone.