I’ve been continuing to obsess over Davies and Irving and the whole issue of homage and plagiarism and so forth. Finally I did what I should have done at the very beginning, which was, duh, some research. And oh, the irony. Guess what I discovered?
In his essay titled “Hoovering to Byzantium,” a writer named David Carpenter describes how Fifth Business itself is suspiciously similar to an earlier novel, Iris Murdoch’s A Severed Head. I’ve never read it, but from Carpenter’s description it sounds like the two novels do indeed have a lot in common. More than what you might expect from two writers who just happened to choose the same myth (Gyges and King Candaules) as a starting point.
Carpenter also describes the similarities between Fifth Business and Owen Meany — interestingly, it doesn’t sound like anyone would ever connect Owen Meany with A Severed Head, since the two books relate to completely different aspects of Fifth Business — and then continues with a description of his own novella which also has similarities to Fifth Business, including a key phrase (“the revenge of the unlived life”), and which he didn’t realize until someone else pointed it out to him.
Carpenter is okay with this. He says:
I am now quite sure that Liesl’s last sentence, above, is my source for Ham Walmsley’s words from my own book. I am also sure that the Lena/Ham relationship draws on the Dunny/Liesl relationship. I have always loved that part of Fifth Business. I must have carried this construct and these words somewhere inside, and when Ham begins his furtive ruminations on love and the desolation of his own life — there they were, these words. This concise wisdom. The writer in me chose them. A few years later, the author in me was embarrassed by them.
Notice Carpenter’s distinction between “writer” and “author.” A writer is what you are while you’re writing. An author is what you are when the book is done and you are talking about it. The job of the writer is to write what feels right, and if what feels right happens to be someone else’s words, so be it. “At the very first time of composition,” Carpenter writes, “I may have been aware that I was using a phrase from Davies’ book but, if I was, I brushed this awareness aside, because in the fever of composing a first draft, these were the right words. In the subsequent drafts I paid no attention to these words — unless it was to congratulate myself on them.”
Now, he’s not saying it’s okay to cut & paste. But plagiarism is not the same as “enlightened lifting”:
If I copy down someone else’s words or ideas and pass them off holus-bolus as my own, I am plagiarizing. If I copy down someone else’s poem — even if I’ve just translated it — and say to my reading audience, “See how clever and wise and sensitive I am,” I am a plagiarist plain and simple.
But taking someone else’s idea (whether knowingly or not) and reformulating it, turning it into something new, and making it your own, that’s something else altogether, sez Carpenter. And this is where the title of the essay comes in — writers are like vacuum cleaners (excuse me, hoovers) sucking up all the words and ideas they come across and by some process of alchemy, making them their own.
Interesting article, interesting idea. I’m not sure if I’d draw the line at the same point where Carpenter does. I’m not sure it’s okay to copy someone else’s words because they’re the “right” words. In a first draft, maybe. But I think writers — or perhaps I should say authors — also have a duty to go back and make sure that anything they’ve “lifted” gets thoroughly transformed.
What do you think?
7 Comments
It all makes sense to me. Authors are constantly saying, if you ask them what advice to give an aspiring writer (I loved that distinction, by the way), to read, read, read. If you read so much, you are bound to imitate/life/use ideas from other authors.
“But I think writers — or perhaps I should say authors — also have a duty to go back and make sure that anything they’ve “lifted” gets thoroughly transformed.”
How, though? How do they know where they’ve lifted something from, unless they set out to do a homage in the first place?
I’m too lazy now to formulate a thoughtful response. But I am glad you wrote this post and did the underlying research. And I love it that you’re still chewing on this kernal. I plan to read Fifth Business at point simply because of the parallels. I enjoy looking for them.
I think Melissa may be right that authors (of fiction, in particular) may not always know that they have lifted something. That doesn’t make plagiarism o.k., but might mean the line between tribute and copying is blurrier for some authors than for others.
Thanks to your recommendation, Bookworm, I am going to use The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper, as one of my literature circle options for my 8th graders this year. In my online research to prepare for the discussions, I found an interview with Susan Cooper including this exchange:
RT: What attracted you to the Arthurian legend as an ingredient in your series The Dark Is Rising?
SC: I haven’t the least idea. It never occurred to me that I was writing about the Arthurian legend as such. I was just writing a series of fantasies which draw on everything I’d ever read, lived through, and absorbed through general cultural osmosis.
Later, she continues:
When I write a novel, I have two things. I have the manuscript as it comes out very slowly, from the typewriter or on the page or wherever; and at the same time I keep a notebook. It’s full of random scraps from all over the place, and they often turn up in the books: quotations, images, historical allusions, etc. But in it I also talk to myself. [Here she describes a couple of things she unconsciously borrowed and retooled from Arthurian legends.]. . . Your head does things before it tells you it’s doing them.
From the interview, it is clear that she is a devotee of Jung, as was Robertson Davies. The relaxed attitude toward recycling of material may stem from a Jungian idea that there are no completely new stories out there anyway, just new ways of telling old stories.
Two things:
One, that is what editors are for, to help you catch those lifted phrases and give credit. I would be inclined to say that Mr. Carpenter is justifying himself since he committed the deed, although I agree about the amalgamation theory (the dustbuster theory?). It seems there should be a difference between lifting a direct line and expanding an idea.
Two, I really have a hard time believing Susan Cooper didn’t know she was using Arthurian Legend. How is that possible? What the heck is she talking about??
Good points, you guys! I don’t think Carpenter mentioned the word editor anywhere in his article. The problem is, once an author (notice I didn’t say writer) gets to be as big as, say, John Irving, I don’t think their editors read as carefully. I’ve definitely noticed this with genre fiction, anyway.
And I have to chime in with Inkling — what the heck is Susan Cooper talking about? Sara, you haven’t read the whole series, so you may not know that in a couple of the later books (The Grey King, Silver on the Tree) King Arthur actually SHOWS UP as a character. Still, I’m pleased as punch that I’ve helped spread the word about this marvelous book to the next generation — just make sure you time it so they’re reading it at Christmas.
Here is the link for the interview with Susan Cooper: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/intrvws/cooper.htm
She admits that she started out without a conscious intention to recycle King Arthur, but then realized it permeated her work and decided to be explicit as the series evolved. Her series conclusion or moral, though, was a conscious decision to break with what she saw as the message from the legend.
Thanks for the link, Sara. I think you’re right. When she talks about the process of writing she sounds very similar to Carpenter.