1. An incomplete and previously unknown Dr. Seuss manuscript is up for auction.

All Sorts of Sports would have followed the exploits of fickle athlete, Pete, had it not lost Seuss’s interest.

“What, in my opinion, is wrong with this story is that ... despite the greatness of Pete as a stellar athlete hero ... the negative image of him flubbing and unable to catch any ball at all will make him a schnook,” Geisel wrote in a note to his former employee who has put the unfinished manuscript up for bid. “This is not entirely apparent in the text, but when you picture these negative scenes in illustrations, you will find that negatives are always more memorable than positives. And I think the reader’s reaction will be, ‘What’s the matter with this dope?’”

The pages also include rudimentary Seussian scribbles, which are valuable in themselves.

What I find interesting about All Sorts of Sports is what it reveals about Seuss’s creative process. He seems to establish meter before writing his poetry, forcing his words to fit the rhythm. In Sports, he uses “blumf” as a placeholder for as-yet unwritten words.

2. The New Yorker had some Twitter fun with #literarysandwiches.

Some suggestions — The Dave Eggers: a broken, runny egg on staggeringly thick bread; served with a guide to its enjoyment.

The Animal Farm: supposed to include a variety of meats in equal parts; in practice, though, mostly ham.

The Nora Roberts: all cheese.

The Beckett: The sandwich you order and then wait for. And wait for. And wait for.
The Leopold Bloom: the inner organs of beasts and fowls, with relish.

The Catcher in the Rye: meatloaf and ketchup on rye bread.

The Mary Shelley: leftover bits from other sandwiches stitched together.

3. Finally, a judge has refused to dismiss a plagiarism suit against J.K. Rowling. (You remember this chestnut, right? The suit accuses Rowling of stealing from Willy the Wizard.)

However, this doesn’t mean the plaintiffs have a strong case. The judge said their chances of success were “improbable.” But it does mean there will be a proper hearing.

Four things, and for a change of pace, I’ll try to be concise.

Airen — the blogger and author who Helene Hegemann remixed — has replied to Hegemann’s assertions that she did not plagiarize him.

There was really no need for her to copy me. But she borrowed entire passages of dialogue. I feel like my copyright has been infringed.

Hegemann’s publisher could probably throw money at Airen to make this issue go away. Even if it does, I hope this worthwhile question is not forgotten. When does influence become plagiarism?

As a sidenote, in Airen’s interview, he said he quit writing when he gave up the drug-club-sex scene because he ran out of material. This begs another question. How much of good writing is dependent on its subject matter? We talk about language here a lot, but we don’t talk about the value of topic.

Thing two: New short story contest from NPR. The only rules are it must be shorter than three minutes when read aloud, and the story must be based on this photograph of an open newspaper on a cafe table. The winner gets to read their story on NPR and receives an autographed Alan Cheuse book.

Thing three: Google looks like it is willing to compromise with its eBook store. If Google settles, then the publishers seem to have won the e-book war. Here’s hoping they can make a profit.

Final thing: Maud Newton writes about how some authors are so good, they paralyze her.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

Helene Hegemann, a 17-year-old German prodigy, is accused of plagiarizing portions of a lesser known novel for her latest book.

Her defense?

It’s not stealing. It’s sampling.

Hegemann’s Axolotl Roadkill is the story of a teenager who dives into the drug-and-club scene after her mother dies. Last week, the blogger Deef Pirmasens (I’d link, but it’s all in German anyhow) noted that portions of Axolotl had been copied from Strobo, a novel written by someone with the nom de plume Airen.

As much as an entire page was cribbed with minimal changes, according to news reports.

Hegemann has since admitted to taking from Strobo, but said she used the material in an original manner.

“I myself don’t feel it is stealing, because I put all the material into a completely different and unique context and from the outset consistently promoted the fact that none of that is actually by me,” she said in an interview.

Well, that’s not entirely true. Hegemann didn’t acknowledge the Airen influence until after a blogger caught her. But it’s her first claim that merits closer examination. Is it still plagiarism if she uses borrowed material in an original manner?

Short answer: Maybe. Long answer: She cites “mixing” (or sampling, as it is often called in the music industry) as her intent. But artists have to credit the source material they sample or they risk law suits. (Ask Biz Markie or De La Soul. Hegemann might have more luck if she takes the 2-Live-Crew route and claims her work is parody.)

Obviously, German copyright law differs from the United States, so I won’t assume that I know how this will play out. With that having been said, everybody is the accumulation of their influences. Some of us wear our influences more obviously than others. But, no matter what, we need to acknowledge these influences, especially if we are copying portions of them verbatim.

Hegemann got it right when she said, “There’s no such thing as originality anyway, just authenticity.” (The quote comes from a statement issued by her publisher.) But part of authenticity is honesty; and, in the name of honesty, she should have credited Airen before a blogger caught her.

Quick note: The report of Kirkus’s death was exaggerated. Herbert Simon, mall mogul and owner of the Indiana Pacers, has purchased the publication. He doesn’t seem to plan a lot of changes except he intends to increase their digital offerings.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

P.S. Cheryl, nice to see you on the blog. Never mention A Walk to Remember again, and we can remain friends.

I’m in a hurry — melange, welcome.

Smith Magazine has made an industry of putting a twist on the Hemingway Challenge.

It invites people to write 6-word memoirs, instead of Hemingway-style 6-word fiction. It compiled some of these memoirs for It All Changed in an Instant. Some from names you recognize — Junot Diaz, Malcolm Gladwell, Gay Talese, Amy Tan — but it’s James Frey who gets the best line.

So would you believe me anyway?

Clever, very clever, but I still don’t forgive Frey. It irritates me that Frey suffered no penalty for lying. What happened, instead? He got more headlines, another guest appearance on Oprah and another publishing deal because of his name-brand recognition.

Moving on:

It’s old news by now, but I’m fascinated by two dueling French novelists.

Camille Laurens wrote a memoir in 1995 about losing her son. Then, Marie Darrieussecq wrote Tom est Mort, a novel treading the same territory a decade later.

Laurens accused Darrieussecq of psychological plagiarism. At the time, she wrote, “I had the feeling, in reading it, that Tom est Mort had been written in my room, with [her] arse on my chair or sprawling in my bed of grief.”

Curiouser and curiouser, the authors shared a publisher and an editor. After her complaints, Laurens was dropped by the publisher.

Now, after the feud has lain fallow for two years, both authors fired fresh shots via their latest publications.

Laurens wrote a novel about a writer who accuses her younger rival of plagiarizing her and is dropped by her editor. Darrieussecq has published a psychological study on writers who are accused of plagiarism. (She’s been accused once before.)

While dueling texts are all well and good, I take vendettas seriously. I’m expecting one of these ladies to drop Ether. What vitriol does Darrieussecq muster in her interview with the Guardian?

“I have discovered that literature is a very unwelcoming place.”

That’s it? Laurens said you had her arse in her chair! You’re going to take that from her?

Laurens may have lost the editor but she wins the beef. By default.

Finally, I give you The Word’s words of 2009. (My favorite: gleng. I have glenged so many times and am relieved that there is a word for it.)

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

P.S. My 6-word memoir: I have not done anything yet.

JD Salinger is suing someone who has written a sequel of sorts to Catcher in the Rye.

The story is called 60 Years Later: Coming through the Rye. It tells the story of a 76-year-old Holden Caulfield as he escapes from a nursing home and “embarks on a curious journey through the streets of New York.”

The writer is a Swedish/American travel writer who uses the nom de plume John David California. He claims to have discovered Salinger’s masterpiece in an abandoned cabin in Cambodia. (Whatever man, he discovered Catcher in his sophomore English class like everybody else.)

Salinger’s attorneys have called the book a “rip-off pure and simple.”

This story raises three questions:
1. How much control do authors have over their creations?
2. Should California be permitted to release his book?
3. Did J.D. California think Salinger’s lawyers weren’t going to fight him?

Let’s address the last question first. California and Windupbird Publishing had to figure that Salinger or some proxy would sue. Salinger, 90, is notoriously protective of his work. Even though he could probably get a $500,000 advance for his grocery list, Salinger has not published a book in decades. He refuses to be interviewed or to sell the film rights to his story. (Thank God. I don’t need to see Jake Gyllenhaal playing Holden Caulfield.)

California had about the same chance of avoiding litigation as I would if I wrote Harry Potter and the Unhappy Marriage that Ends in a Vitriolic Custody Battle.

I’m not sure the legality of California’s situation; but I suspect Salinger and his attorneys will be able to block the book’s release.

Now here comes the hard question. Should they?

Should California be permitted to release his story?

Sure, Rye II: Electric Boogaloo might be hack work on par with Star Trek fan fiction. But it might be like Jon Clinch’s Finn, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead or Gregory Maguire’s modern fairy tales. Clinch might not be Mark Twain, and Tom Stoppard isn’t Shakespeare but their stories have merit of their own.

Makal Gilmore wrote, “When you create characters and a storyscape that occupy somebody else’s imagination, you lose the sole authority to determine how that work resounds in other’s dreams.”

This is especially true for corporately owned characters. Could you imagine if people could no longer write Mickey Mouse or Batman stories because their creators’ estates interceded?

Salinger can’t stop California and others from imagining The Further Adventures of Holden Caulfield. (Though he may be able to stop them from being published.)

I suspect someone will ultimately publish a sequel to Catcher. It may be under the auspices of Salinger’s estate decades after his death. It could be this June, if Salinger withdraws his objection. (Unlikely.)

Either way, it will not surpass Salinger or tarnish Catcher’s reputation.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com

P.S. Other bad sequel ideas:

1985. Big Brother Discovers Whitesnake.

Richmond Heights. A modern retelling of Wuthering Heights in which Heathcliff can’t pass a school levy.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I reviewed the new Rick Bragg book for this Sunday’s paper.
Never heard of Rick Bragg?

What about Janet Cooke? Jayson Blair? Stephen Glass?

Bragg resigned from The New York Times after he was exposed for using others’ research as his own. He got in trouble after writing a first-person story about oystermen in Florida. He had the lone byline on the story even though most of the actual reporting was done by an unpaid intern.

Bragg can paint a picture with his pen. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for feature writing and, unlike Janet Cooke, didn’t have to give it back.

I like his Southern-fried prose. I liked it when he was a reporter and I liked it when I read “The Prince of Frogtown,” the last of three reminiscences on his Alabama family.

But my lips still tighten into a frown when I hear his — or Blair’s or Cook’s or Glass’s — name.

It’s how police officers must have felt when Dak Cochran was convicted on child pornography charges or firefighters felt when Michael Kaminski was charged with cocaine trafficking.

The feeling:

Damn it, this guy’s going to ruin it for us all.

Bragg is nowhere near as egregious as Blair, Glass or Cook. No one has accused him of making up stories, just taking credit for work that isn’t his. (And, honestly, he became the scapegoat for a caste system that existed in more than one large newspaper.) But what he did was still implicitly dishonest. He put a dateline on a story, knowing that he spent one night in the town while his intern pounded the pavement for him.

But when one reporter’s credibility is ruined, it affects us all. If it happened at The New York Times, why couldn’t it happen at The News-Herald, people might ask.

My grandparents never wondered if Walter Cronkite was lying. The public will never have that sort of trust for the media again. Not just because of Blair and Glass.

People have grown more cynical — not just toward reporters, toward everything. Name the last politician you trusted. How about the last baseball player?

Every home run feels like a countdown to a steroid scandal. All of today’s heroes feel like tomorrow’s potential villains.

It’s a lonely world where you can’t trust your morning newspaper, your president or your baseball team.

And while I like Bragg as a writer, I hate the Bragg who inadvertently contributed to that world.

-Jason Lea, JLea@News-Herald.com