More McEwan

More on the plagarism charges aimed at Ian McEwan. Novelists have rallied around him in support, declaring that all he has done is be inspired by another work of art.

“If it is sufficient to point to a simultaneity of events to prove plagiarism, then we are all plagiarists, and Shakespeare is in big trouble from Petrarch, and Tolstoy stole the material for ‘War and Peace,’ ” wrote the Australian writer Thomas Keneally, the author of “Schindler’s List.” “Fiction depends on a certain value-added quality created on top of the raw material, and that McEwan has added value beyond the original will, I believe, be richly demonstrated.” If not, Mr. Keneally added, “God help us all.”

Personally, I think this all stems from one dreadful literary agent's willingness to tarnish a living author simply to promote the name of his dead client. Unsurprisingly, it's worked.