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Newer PostOlder PostT U E S D AY, N O V E M B E R 2 8 , 2 0 0 6Is Ian McEwen A Plagiarist?Ian McEwen's Atonement is one of the better books of recent years.And now McEwen joins the ranks of well-known authors accused ofplagiarism. I finally caught up with the imbroglio yesterday in theBritish papers, but this New York Times recap of the issue is the bestone-stop guide. In short, it seems McEwen used some technicaldescriptions of medical procedures from a biography of a romancenovelist who specializes in "hospital romances" and worked as a nurseduring WW II in the same area as McEwen's major character. The onepassage quoted as an example of cribbing seems rather innocuous --there's no thrilling turn of phrase or startling image here:Mr. McEwan, for instance, wrote: “In the way of medicaltreatments, she had already dabbed gentian violet on ringworm,aquaflavine emulsion on a cut and painted lead lotion on abruise.” Ms. Andrews’s book has the lines: “Our ‘nursing’seldom involved more than dabbing gentian violent onringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on cuts and scratches, leadlotion on bruises and sprains.”And McEwan listed the memoir in his acknowledgements at the end ofthe book and has repeatedly mentioned Andrews in interviews andchats and praised her work for helping him. Clearly, when dealing withsomething technical, there are only so many ways to list medicines andtreatments. I despise plagiarism and the free pass so many famousauthors -- like Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose -- seem toget. But this brouhaha seems much ado. Andrews herself before shedied was told of the questionable passages and wrote, "I don't give adamn." Agreed.POSTED BY MICHAEL IN NEW YORK AT
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POPSURFING.COM: Is Ian McEwen A Plagiarist?http://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2006/11/is-ian-mcewen-plagiaris...
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