This morning’s Washington Post has a report of a plagiarism trial involving Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code. (I have railed against this lazily written book before in these pages.)
According to the report, Brown was called as a witness in a lawsuit brought against his publisher (not Brown himself) by a couple of writers who claim he lifted the structure of his story from their non-fiction work. He finds their claim “absurd” and says he drafted the outline himself in 2001 in his parents’ laundry room.
I cannot tell from this report what the merits of the case might be. I observe, simply, that plagiarism is a lazy tactic often used by lazy and unoriginal writers. I have observed this in my 20 years of college and high-school teaching.
And, of course, I’ve earlier argued that The Da Vinci Code is a very lazily written book. I’m not saying he lifted the plot from Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh’s work–I have no idea one way or another. I’m just saying I would not be at all surprised if that turned out to be the case.
The Post Style-section article, by Kevin Sullivan, has the rather sarcastic and bemused tone of so many Style-section pieces, and seems to assume that Brown is the victim of money-grubbing star chasers. I guess this is to be expected, since Brown and DVC are the flavor-of-the-week (flavor-of-the-decade?).
Too bad. It would have been much more interesting to read a bit more about the merits of the case, rather than Brown’s “exasperated” answers to “a line of questioning as compelling and clear as a toaster warranty.” Kevin Sullivan describes the attorneys and the judge as “[wearing] … august black robe[s] and … white wig[s] with Shirley Temple curls.” Yeah, well, it’s a British court. They’ve dressed like that for centuries, Kevin.
Sullivan must not have observed many trials. Legal inquiry, to someone outside of a case, is usually stultifying. That doesn’t, however, make it invalid.
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I’m on travel in Massachusetts, and since Brown is a local guy (from New Hampshire) there’s been quite a lot about this on the news.
It doesn’t much clarify though. Evidently Brown admits he read the book, and that this week he has admitted essentially that he lifted the Jesus was married portion of the story from it.
How much is still not clear, and it is a sticky situation. Fiction is often written on non-fiction bones, and indeed to some extent any piece of fiction has some bit of reality in it. But exactly where this should stop, and how much it is appropriate is a real grey area.
I suspect Dan did indeed stray too far in that direction, but exactly how far too far is - well, I’m glad I’m not on that jury.