'Opal Mehta' Contains Similarities To Two Other Novels

A recently-released novel by Kaavya Viswanathan ’08, which has come under scrutiny for containing passages lifted from two books by Megan F. McCafferty, also includes three passages strikingly similar to those found in two other books.

The 19-year-old author of “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life” said last week that any similarities between her book and McCafferty’s “Sloppy Firsts” and “Second Helpings” were “unintentional and unconscious.”

Now she appears to have borrowed passages from Salman Rushdie’s “Haroun and the Sea of Stories,” and Meg Cabot’s “The Princess Diaries.” In each of the cases, the passages in question contain similar rhymes and descriptions.

Page 12 of Meg Cabot’s 2000 novel “The Princess Diaries” reads: “There isn’t a single inch of me that hasn’t been pinched, cut, filed, painted, sloughed, blown dry, or moisturized. [...] Because I don’t look a thing like Mia Thermopolis. Mia Thermopolis never had fingernails. Mia Thermopolis never had blond highlights. Mia Thermopolis never wore makeup or Gucci shoes or Chanel skirts or Christian Dior bras, which by the way don’t even come in 32A, which is my size. I don’t even know who I am anymore. It certainly isn’t Mia Thermopolis. She’s turning me into someone else.”

The italics appear in the original.

And page 59 of Viswanathan’s novel reads: “Every inch of me had been cut, filed, steamed, exfoliated, polished, painted, or moisturized. I didn’t look a thing like Opal Mehta. Opal Mehta didn’t own five pairs of shoes so expensive they could have been traded in for a small sailboat. She didn’t wear makeup or Manolo Blahniks or Chanel sunglasses or Habitual jeans or Le Perla bras. She never owned enough cashmere to make her concerned for the future of the Kazakhstani mountain goat population. I was turning into someone else.”

In Rushdie’s “Haroun,” a 1990 children’s novel, the title character Haroun enters a bus depot and passes by several admonitions written on the walls surrounding the depot’s courtyard. Likewise, in Viswanathan’s novel, the protagonist helps another student place posters on a wall that discourage drug and alcohol use.

On page 35 of Rushdie’s novel, one of the warnings reads: “If from speed you get your thrill / take precaution—make your will.”

On page 118 of Viswanathan’s novel, one of the posters reads: “If from drink you get your thrill, take precaution—write your will.”

On page 31 of Rushdie’s novel, another warning reads: “All the dangerous overtakers / end up safe as undertaker’s.”

On page 119 of Viswanathan’s novel, another poster reads: “All the dangerous drug abusers end up safe as total losers.”

Viswanathan did not respond to a request for comment.

The similarities to the Rushdie novel were mentioned in the New York Times today. The “Princess Diaries” similarity was found on the online journal DesiJournal, which describes itself as “ an online weekly magazine that would reflect the lives of Indians, primarily living in the United States.”

Viswanathan has defended her writing in the past by stating that she “internalized” McCafferty’s books, and that she has a photographic memory.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday that that Dreamworks, which bought the movie rights to “Opal Mehta,” has halted production of the film. The article cited “a source close to Dreamworks.”

Dreamworks representatives did not respond to several phone calls and e-mail requests for comment over the past two days.

—Staff writer Paras D. Bhayani can be reached at pbhayani@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer David Zhou can be reached at dzhou@fas.harvard.edu.