I don't know, I'm having trouble taking the plagiarism charges against first-time author Kaavya Viswanathan all that seriously. From these comparisons, it doesn't seem she plagiarized so much as used the skeleton of a couple turns of phrase in another book, fleshing out the descriptions with her own characters, imagery, and word choice. It's seedy, I agree, but it's not outright mimicry. The difference between this and consciously modeling your authorial voice after a favored writer seems to be one of degree, not kind. Unless there's more here than meets the eye and the books plots parallel one another or the synchronicities are significantly more widespread than currently being reported, I think Viswanathan should get little more than a rap on the knuckles. And hey, if she did plagiarize out right, she can always be a United States senator...
