The Money Tree

Nice to meet you: I am a sociable, competent Harvard student, certainly adept at multitasking, and I get pretty decent grades. I write a fair bit, and I think I’m pretty good at it, and I’m working on a novel that may be turned into a screenplay. Of course, I’m getting some help with it—I am very busy, and ultimately this stuff has to sell. Which brings me to my next point: After this, I want to be an investment banker.

In under a month, we have seen this parable played out twice—with devastating plot turns even Alloy Entertainment couldn’t concoct—among our ranks at Harvard. Before allegations of plagiarism against Kaavya Viswanathan ’08 surfaced, there was the story of Eugene M. Plotkin ’00, who was arrested just two weeks ago for allegedly earning $6.7 million through an insider trading scheme with a colleague from Goldman Sachs. (In his fifth anniversary report, the New York Observer reported this month, Plotkin had written that he was working on a novel.)

Fortunately for Plotkin, Viswanathan’s tumble from grace has relegated his sad story to the back pages of the papers. Before Plotkin, and perhaps more relevant to the circumstances at hand, there was Blair Hornstine, that notable valedictorian whose admission to Harvard was revoked when it was discovered that she had plagiarized articles for her local newspaper. Harvard rescinded the admission not on the grounds of academic plagiarism, but citing “conduct unbecoming of a Harvard student.”

This new episode, more so than its unsavory predecessors, has been an opportunity for bloggers and snarky columnists alike (ahem) to shake their heads smugly and tsk-tsk at the unhappy fate of elite college students in an age of unfettered corporate capitalism and adolescent ambition.

It’s hard to disagree with this assessment: whoever was responsible for the unfortunate (let’s be honest, uncanny) parallels between Viswanathan’s novel and the work of Megan F. McCafferty, artistic ambition had less to do with this project than dreams of big cash. What is most disheartening for me is what happened before the scandal hit the presses: In fact, I think the real transgression here is the corporate project masquerading as an artistic endeavor.

This book deal had once seemed like a charming accident: “I had only vaguely thought of becoming a writer,” Viswanathan told the New York Sun just over a year ago, claiming she wanted to be an investment banker. This is fine, I suppose. Writers shouldn’t always take themselves too seriously, and chick lit certainly has its place (I, for one, spend a small fortune on tabloids and track Nicole Richie’s weight like a stock analyst.) Furthermore, to argue that novels should be divorced from economic reality would be absurd and naïve.

And, when it comes down to it, I feel sorry for Viswanathan, whose talent seems to have been willingly squandered on the altar of ambition and mass production. But even if, as she now asserts, the echoes were the result of accidental influence, the fact that she used this novel packaging service should tell you something about artistic integrity.

I drew the comparison between Plotkin and Viswanathan not to partake in what many have deemed gleeful schadenfreude, but because I wanted to address the concern voiced by some Crimson readers as to why Viswanathan has been, in their view, singled out for public scrutiny.

After all, allegations of plagiarism have plagued some of Harvard’s most famous professors in recent years, from Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz to Harvard constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe ’62. And of course, there was the recent scandal of economics professor Andrei Shleifer ’82, who was taken to court last year for allegedly attempting to defraud the U.S. government.

On the subject of professors and bestsellers—and, by the way, this scandal has only boosted sales for both Viswanathan and McCafferty’s books—I turn to former Dean of Harvard College Harry R. Lewis ’68, whose forthcoming book, “Excellence Without a Soul: How a Great University Forgot Education,” argues in part that the tendency at Harvard toward corporate culture and specialization has undermined the pursuit of education and true passion for knowledge.

“In recent years,” Lewis writes in his online author’s note, “the University has had its head turned ever more by consumerism and by public relations imperatives, to the detriment of its educational priorities for students.” Harvard has turned its head, and we have followed.

I’m not going to try to shirk the blame here, not for Viswanathan nor for my generation. It takes courage and hard work to go against the prevailing grain of corporate society, to trust your instinct and passion when the powers of the market demand otherwise. Opal Mehta, too, can tell us about parental pressure (whether or not she could do it in her own words remains to be seen). Nobody I know at Harvard can completely tune out the temptations of cash or the security and immunity that a Harvard education seems to guarantee now and in the future. If our generation wasn’t set on insta-fame, we wouldn’t write insta-novels. We would be confident in our own writing: confident enough to put it out there for criticism and praise, unwilling to compromise or cut corners. That said, I know an unemployed columnist in need of a leg up.

Rebecca D. O’Brien ’06 is a history and literature concentrator in Kirkland House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays