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Comment on this article "Now, this paper was about fifty pages long. And there were extensive footnotes citing French, German, and Italian material. . . . Clearly, then, it wasn't the kind of thing an 18-year-old could have written -- even one who spoke a little French. Once again, though, I got an 'A.' Either Betty was too stupid to recognize the larceny (my assumption at the time), or -- having recognized it -- too lazy to bring me up on charges. Or too indifferent. Or too kind. Or maybe, I now realize, she never read it."
You have done me a terrible disservice by reprinting out of context those few lines from my recent essay in the London Review of Books. An attentive reading makes clear -- and should have made clear to your magazine (had anyone there bothered to do such a reading) -- that, like something by David Sedaris, the essay is both serious (yet amusing) satire and creative nonfiction. So as literary confession, even by an academic, it is not to be taken at face value. If you'd like, I'd be happy to write a feature article on the genre. We did read Kevin Kopelson's 4,400-word essay, and we indeed found it both serious and amusing. But it never occurred to us that -- as Kopelson implies in his letter by the use of the word "satire" and the phrase "not to be taken at face value" -- he was making things up. We asked Kopelson if the passage we quoted (in which he describes submitting a plagiarized paper for a music class at Yale) was true. He responded: "That is something the reader of the essay must decide for him- or herself." -- Eds.
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