I just found this awesome letter written by Thomas Pynchon, published in
Daily Telegraph, supporting and in defense of Ian McEwan. For the uninitiated, Mr. McEwan was the object of a plagiarism controversy in late 2006 as regards his bestselling and highly acclaimed novel,
Atonement. What made the whole charges of plagiarism absurd on its face was that it wasn't plagiarism at all; the author had acknowledged, both in the novel and vocally on many occasions, the source of historical information he is purported to have plagiarized. Nevertheless, some unscrupulous attention whores desperately wanting to muster some attention for themselves accused him anyway.
The controversy was much analogous to a news network filing charges of plagiarism against a filmmaker for having based his story on real events reported only by that network...despite the fact that the filmmaker has acknowledged it.
Thomas Pynchon was quick to speak against such wild accusations, as is seen in this letter (dated December 2006):
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