It's not plagiarism (spoilers?)

[Ya Sam]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/12/09/do0905.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/12/09/ixopinion.html














"Oddly, though, Pynchon and the question of literary influence have been on 
my mind. I recently finished reading his new novel, early sections of which 
make much of the more peculiar speculations of Nikola Tesla about 
teleportation and time-travel. In Against the Day, Tesla appears as a 
character, and his theories are linked to a phenomenon described as 
"bilocation" – where the same character appears in two places at once. The 
same week, I happened to read Christopher Priest's The Prestige (1995), in 
which Tesla also appears and whose plot hinges on "bilocation", or something 
like it. Whether Pynchon read Priest is a matter of interest rather than 
indignation. The two books couldn't be more different.

If you Google "Tesla" alongside "bilocation", you'll find references to 
Priest and Pynchon. You'll also stumble on the website for some new-age 
hucksters selling "Atlantean Power Crystals™" that give "access to the 
universal language of the body of light, for bilocation, translation and 
multilocation functions", as well as "The Tesla Purple Energy Shield™" 
("enhances manifesting skills", inter alia).

If only Tesla himself, having made use of his research into the 
possibilities of time-travel, were here to arbitrate on the question of who 
borrowed what from whom, and whether those crystals represent "hommage" or 
"postmodernism" or "fraud". Alas, he can't be. His wilder theories only 
worked in fiction. So if a similar phrase or situation or idea turns up in 
McEwan and Andrews, or Pynchon and Priest, or Leith and Taylor, pause before 
crying plagiarism. Think of it instead as "bilocation"."

_________________________________________________________________
Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE! 
http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/