How Kaavya got a package 038; lost the plot

The most interesting8212;and in a way most egregious8212;thing about Harvard University sophomore Kaavya Vishwanathan isn8217;t the plagiarism. It8217;s the packaging.

The most interesting8212;and in a way most egregious8212;thing about Harvard University sophomore Kaavya Vishwanathan isn8217;t the plagiarism. It8217;s the packaging.

Vishwanathan8217;s novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, now withdrawn by its embarrassed publisher, tells the story of a stressed-out Indian American girl fixated8212;along with her Range Rover-driving neurosurgeon father and obstetrician-turned-stay-at-home-mother8212;on getting into Harvard. So fixated that when Phase One of the hatched-at-birth family plan, HOWGIH How Opal Will Get Into Harvard, threatens to come undone because the Harvard admissions director deems her too serious, the family launches Phase Two: HOWGAL How Opal Will Get a Life.

The curry-scented slapstick that follows is more product placement Moschino miniskirt, Jimmy Choo stilettos, Habitual jeans than literature8212;though not much worse than the usual formulaic teen novel. Opal is the anti-Holden Caulfield, so welded to her parents that she complies unquestioningly with their HOWGAL checklist.

Like the character in her novel, Vishwanathan is 8216;8216;an Indian-American girl who got good grades, from New Jersey, who wanted to go to an Ivy League school.8217;8217; It was only to be expected, then, that Vishwanathan8217;s, yes, Vishwanathan8217;s Range Rover-driving neurosurgeon father and obstetrician-turned-stay-at-home-mother signed their only child up with IvyWise. This admissions counseling service will, for a fee8212;the platinum package will set you back 30,0008212;8216;8216;take all the raw material and help you put it together in the way that an admissions officer is going to be most impressed by,8217;8217; as Vishwanathan explained.

It was, unsurprisingly, IvyWise founder Katherine Cohen Brown 8217;89; Yale PhD 8217;97 who got Vishwanathan into the book-writing business. Cohen author, Rock Hard Apps: How to Write a Killer College Application wondered why Vishwanathan hadn8217;t listed her novel-in-progress on her resume. You can almost see her application-glazed eyes lighting up.

Which is where the next round of packaging comes in. Cohen sent Vishwanathan8217;s work to her own agent, who hooked up the teenager with Alloy Entertainment, a book packager yes, this is really a business that specialises in churning out teen-lit like so many Moschino miniskirts. Deeming her original concept too dark, Alloy 8216;8216;helped Kaavya conceptualise and plot the book,8217;8217; the company president said.

It8217;s no excuse, but with all this third-party positioning, is it any wonder that a person8212;especially a teen-age person8212;could forget or ignore the fact that some of the writing in her book is not actually hers?

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Vishwanathan, perhaps, has learned a lesson that the admissions industrial complex does its best to obscure: There are more things to cry about than not getting into Harvard. 8212;Ruth Marcus