The Plot

Part 2 contemplates the ethics of plagiarism, placing on the continuum of art conversation: art that responds to someone else’s work, art that borrows from earlier art, and art that builds on someone else’s ideas seems to only be a stone’s throw from outright theft. Jake’s desperation allows him to convince himself that the only thing that matters is sharing an idea with an audience; Jake’s believes “being a writer meant another allegiance, to something of even higher value. Which was the story itself” (61). Jake elevates story, treating it as a transcendent, otherworldly thing that must be obeyed. Jake also confesses to looking up to writers who steal. He loves the old chestnut,

Good writers borrow, great writers steal [...] That ubiquitous phrase was attributed to T. S. Eliot (which didn’t mean Eliot hadn’t, himself, stolen it!) but Eliot had been talking, perhaps less than seriously, about the theft of actual language—phrases and sentences and paragraphs—not of a story, itself (64).

Jake’s moral compass is adrift after the humiliation of bad reviews, rejections, his position at a low-ranked college like Ripley, online gigs, and now having to serve other would-be writers at a retreat. Twisting the knife further, the success of Jake’s first novel is the reason for Jake’s new servile job, as his new boss says, “I like the idea of a successful writer greeting the guests when they arrive. Gives them something real to aspire to” (49). Jake’s identity as a writer is now simply local color, while he mostly manages the guests’ non-writing issues, like the lunch menu.

Two years prior, Jake felt his position as a teacher was useless: “He was a deck attendant on the Titanic, moving the chairs around with fifteen ungifted prose writers while somehow persuading them that additional work would help them improve” (56-57). However, helping other people improve their sentences was at least writing-adjacent. Now, Jake feels robbed of what he worked so hard for—success as a novelist—and humiliated to have to essentially work in customer service with a master’s degree.