Unknown unknowns
People are sometimes surprised when I tell them I don’t read contemporary crime fiction. I guess this seems doubly remarkable – a) given my job and b) living in Scotland, where there is a competent crime writer on almost every corner. Why miss out!
The answer is the clumsy expression ‘unconscious plagiarism’ – and its classical cousin ‘cryptomnesia’ (the experiencing of a memory as if it were a new inspiration). Not just phrases to be avoided, but habits that if unwittingly acquired could lead to something between embarrassment and litigation (a spectrum from ‘pissing off’ to ‘passing off’, one might say).
Now, however, I need a new word. In November 2018 I started writing my latest DI Skelgill murder mystery. For some time I have wanted to use as a setting a ‘sleeper train’ (conscious plagiarism). Sure enough, the characters arrived at Euston Station just before midnight and trundled off together. One of these turned out to be a forty-something female journalist, desperate for a scoop to ward off threats of redundancy, and battling not just fate but her own foibles and failings.
Researching around the subject, in January I came across the gem of the novel that is Stamboul Train by Graham Greene. Published in 1932 this is the original Orient Express yarn – and quite a bloodthirsty thriller, in Greene’s inimitable dry style.
But, stone me! If my middle-aged female hack, desperate for a scoop, battling her weaknesses isn’t in it! I mean, not just a vague likeness – but almost exactly my character: the same pushy personality, the same pathos, the same motives. Yet I had never heard of Stamboul Train the book, nor seen the film (Orient Express, 1934).
Telepathy? The collective unconscious? Hmm... or just plain coincidence?
The nearest comparison I can make is by reference to my many years in advertising. Occasionally frustrated to lose a pitch and yet see our idea in lights a few months later, we would be told, “Ah – you see, two agencies came up with the same concept”. Maybe I should have believed them more often!
(By the way, credit to Donald Rumsfeld for the title.)
The answer is the clumsy expression ‘unconscious plagiarism’ – and its classical cousin ‘cryptomnesia’ (the experiencing of a memory as if it were a new inspiration). Not just phrases to be avoided, but habits that if unwittingly acquired could lead to something between embarrassment and litigation (a spectrum from ‘pissing off’ to ‘passing off’, one might say).
Now, however, I need a new word. In November 2018 I started writing my latest DI Skelgill murder mystery. For some time I have wanted to use as a setting a ‘sleeper train’ (conscious plagiarism). Sure enough, the characters arrived at Euston Station just before midnight and trundled off together. One of these turned out to be a forty-something female journalist, desperate for a scoop to ward off threats of redundancy, and battling not just fate but her own foibles and failings.
Researching around the subject, in January I came across the gem of the novel that is Stamboul Train by Graham Greene. Published in 1932 this is the original Orient Express yarn – and quite a bloodthirsty thriller, in Greene’s inimitable dry style.
But, stone me! If my middle-aged female hack, desperate for a scoop, battling her weaknesses isn’t in it! I mean, not just a vague likeness – but almost exactly my character: the same pushy personality, the same pathos, the same motives. Yet I had never heard of Stamboul Train the book, nor seen the film (Orient Express, 1934).
Telepathy? The collective unconscious? Hmm... or just plain coincidence?
The nearest comparison I can make is by reference to my many years in advertising. Occasionally frustrated to lose a pitch and yet see our idea in lights a few months later, we would be told, “Ah – you see, two agencies came up with the same concept”. Maybe I should have believed them more often!
(By the way, credit to Donald Rumsfeld for the title.)
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