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This is an updated paperback edition of Thomas Mallon's sprightly book on the complex
subject of literary plagiarism, a study that caused considerable stir when first published
back in 1989. Its only new element is an 11-page Afterword in which the author offers a
few observations on the Internet and other topics that bear on his main subject.
Not surprisingly, Mallon sees the Internet as opening up vast new opportunities for the
enterprising plagiarist and making the job of those who would thwart them a great deal
more difficult. And it's not just the hard-pressed college student with a term paper due
tomorrow that Mallon is talking about; he also includes the tenure-hungry professor, the
aspiring novelist, and the literary community at large.
All that information is sitting out there in cyberspace, already organized, codified and
ready for picking, he says. Perhaps the ultimate prophet of this Not-So-Brave New World is
one "Rodney P. Riegle, Ph.D.," whose website hails the "Death and Rebirth
of Plagiarism," claiming that the fine art of stealing other people's words and
passing them off as your own will be "reborn with a positive connotation in the
Information Age...What we now call plagiarism will become a basic skill. Instead of trying
to prevent it, we will teach it..." The whole question of who produced and wrote out
the information in the first place will become, in Rodney P. Riegle's world,
"irrelevant."
Mallon means this sort of thing to send shivers of dread coursing up and down academic
spines --- as it certainly should. Any kind of spines, as a matter of fact. To his credit,
this whole idea appalls Mallon. His Afterword ends with a call for a kind of guerilla
warfare against Riegle-ism on the part of an "aesthetic underground" of those
who hew to the quaint old notion that literary theft is simply wrong.
Mallon's new summary chapter also takes glancing notice of several other themes that
played through his 1989 book, notably at the timidity with which the academic community
continues to deal with cases of plagiarism that arise within its own ranks. This was a
major theme of a chapter in STOLEN WORDS built around a celebrated case at Texas Tech in
the early 1980s. Mallon's conclusion, after relating all the facts in that case, is that
the academics involved were simply afraid to call a plagiarist by that name, preferring to
escort him off campus as quietly as possible so as not to disturb the cloistered calm of
the place and, above all, not to have the case go public beyond the world of academia
itself. Mallon still feels this is a dishonorable approach and says so plainly.
The canned term-paper industry that caters to college undergraduates also gets a few more
whacks from Mallon along with an alarmed appreciation of how it seems to be growing and
prospering via the Internet. There is also a lamentably brief paragraph or two on
journalistic plagiarism, a subject that doubtless stirs more interest among general
readers than does the academic variety.
So Mallon's Afterword is a useful but hardly surprising addition to his celebrated book.
However, STOLEN WORDS remains a fascinating, skillfully written and vastly entertaining
book on an important subject. The passage of 12 years has not dimmed its luster.
--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)
© Copyright 1996-2008, Bookreporter.com. All rights reserved.
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