Confessions of a Plagiarist: And Other Tales from School - A Must-Read Book for Students, Teachers, and Parents | Perfect for Classroom Discussions & Personal Reflection
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Product Description
In college, Kevin Kopelson passed off a paper by his older brother Robert as his own. In graduate school, he plagiarized nearly an entire article from a respected scholar, and then later, having met her and been asked if he would send something for her to read, sent that essay he had plagiarized from her work. This is not to mention the many instances in which he quoted others extensively, not passing their work off as his own, but substituting it for his own words when his words were what were called for. Until recently, such plagiarisms and thefts had been his most shameful secret, shared only with a trusted few. But then Kopelson, now an English professor and the author of a number of respected books, most recently 2007's SEDARIS, wrote an essay entitled MY CORTEZ, which was published in the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS in 2008. It was a satirical literary confession, an exploration of his personal and professional life via his various acts of plagiarism. From that jumping off point and exploring also his other vices, CONFESSIONS OF A PLAGIARIST is the compelling and clever retelling (not to mention renovation) of Kopelson's life, one transgression at a time.
Customer Reviews
Kathrin Day Lassila's blurb nails it: Kopelson's "surgery on himself" is utterly engrossing. He doesn't flinch through his persistent incisions, and we don't blink through all that's revealed in relationships that develop and unravel, insights that coalesce only to implode or transform. Most impressive is Kopelson's particular attention to those self-deceptions that accompany some of our most egregious transgressions but that also enable our survival in difficult circumstances. Each confession is deeply comical but also intriguingly philosophical, combining stark reconsiderations of works that have influenced Kopelson (by writers such as Salinger, Bishop, Barthes, and Woolf) with a fresh perspective informed by his rich variety of experiences--from the familial to the professional (as musician, lawyer, professor, and other potentially seedy occupations) to the romantic and the sexual. Brutal in his self-examination but superbly witty in his delivery, Kopelson grants us the catharsis of his own experiences and conclusions. He generously shares a great many sides of his persona and, one feels, his actual personality, and in such a way that all involved in these confessions are vividly evoked. There are chapters that left me so in love with the "characters" that it was actually painful to part with them on the page. "Carolyn," in particular, is well worth meeting here, especially if you've ever doubted a career choice or cherished elaborate playfulness in the conversation of a friend. More memorable than much fiction, better crafted than much non-fiction, and compulsively readable for many in academia, Confessions of a Plagiarist and Other Tales from School is a book you will eagerly tear through but frequently reflect on for a long time after.
