I was somewhat impressed by Rowan’s act of plagiarism as described in Widdicombe’s article for the New Yorker, to create a book out of a multitude of different books is hard to even fathom. One can even argue that were it not for his eidetic (photographic) memory writing a book in this fashion would have been way more difficult than creating an original work; you would have to take into account different tones, situations and then make them fit seamlessly into one story. This was still an act of plagiarism but at the same it was still a work of art. I strongly believe like the article alluded to that if Rowan had initially come out before the book’s release and said that his book was created from a mash-up of different works there wouldn’t have been that much outrage. At least Rowan admitted to his act of plagiarism unlike Senator John Walsh who flatly denied his act of plagiarism according to the New York Times article by Jonathan Martin. Senator Walsh was accused of allegedly copying his thesis for the U.S. Army War College; after looking at the open interactive graphic in the New York Times article it’s pretty hard to deny that he did not plagiarize parts of his thesis. Once you are caught plagiarizing the only thing you can do is fall on your pen and apologize there is no other recourse.
An impressive work of plagiarism.
Leave a reply
