Raj Patel does LotR and Kung Fu Monkey a disservice ;)

[cynthia1960]

I'm reading Value of Nothing by Raj Patel, and I am amused by this quote from the beginning of Chapter 10:

"There are two novels that can transform a bookish fourteen-year-old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish daydream that can lead to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood in which large chunks of the day are spent inventing ways to make real life more like a fantasy novel. The other is a book about orcs."

Well, Mr. Patel, I was fifteen not fourteen, but even then I got a whole lot more out of LotR than you had. You *are* spot on about Rand, though.

ETA: tandw points out that the quote is actually from Kung Fu Monkey and it reads like this:

"-- There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

John Rogers' version is more elegant :).

I haven't seen any attribution for this in my Kindle edition of Patel's book, and that's really sloppy and inconsiderate plagiarism.

Mr. Patel: You've written a best-selling nonfiction book, would it kill you to footnote this and link to Rogers? Hell, it took one of my friends no time at all to find the link and send me it, and then it was easy to edit my entry and give proper credit where credit is due. And was the copyeditor (or whoever does fact checking at the publisher) asleep at the wheel? Note to all the folks trashing traditional publishers (who probably aren't reading this, because my FL/access list has more clue than that): This kind of thing will run rampant if everybody and his dog starts publishing.

Comments

[whump]

Does the Kindle edition have end notes?

[tandw.livejournal.com]

I think that's actually a quote from John Rogers (a/k/a Kung Fu Monkey).

[tandw.livejournal.com]

And I was correct, unless he stole it from someone else and didn't credit it: here

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

Thank you for doing the legwork. I've edited the entry.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to go so far as to claim that Ayn Rand doesn't involve orcs.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

[pkmorrison.livejournal.com]

Who the hell is this Patel jackass? Never heard of him. Certainly never read him. Oh, wait, wasn't he my cabdriver today?

The two books he's slamming, though: read both, loved 'em. That is all.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

I'm looking at the index for this book, and Patel has managed to properly put links to a lot of stuff he's found on the Web, so he can't say he doesn't know how to do this.

I'll be pleased if he acknowledges the omission and makes sure it gets properly cited. I was recently reading the biography of Molly Ivins (who I dearly miss and wish she was alive to comment on what's going on...as an aside, I wish I could read what she would say about a former governor of Alaska), and she got called out once for failure to quote without attribution, and it wasn't pretty.

Since this book is a best seller, and he's been touring promoting the book, this seems to be more significant than somebody on their blog joking around with their friends and failing to know who said that really excellent joke the first time.