So, you mean the whole body of work or at the very least a series, where the artist adopts a permanent “advocatus diaboli”-position?
In this case, I could name a couple a satirists, unfortunately all European, who have developed a persona or personas who advocate positions that are outrageously different from the ones of the man behind the mask: Gerhard Polt, for example, has acted in cabaret, movies, books etc. like the most petty-minded Bavarian Philistine, while he is quite the opposite. Jürgen von Manger had done the same with the persona of Adolf Tegtmeier, a simple bourgeois from the Ruhr area.
I am sure you know examples from your culture too.
I thought, you meant “political” differences; I am pretty sure all the fantasy authors don’t actually believe in the things they write - or let their protagonist state as facts.
Joss Whedon’s a confessed big gubmint Democrat type, but his “Firefly” (and its follow-up movie, “Serenity”) are some of the more overtly libertarian works of the past ten years.
(It’s a tad ironic that a liberal Dem writes a more convincing fictional argument against big government than, say, Ayn Rand.)
And as that Wiki article mentions, the American Nazi Party liked it. A variation on Poe’s Law I guess; they couldn’t recognize satire when it was aimed at them.
My copy of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End has at the beginning a line to the effect that “the views expressed in this book are not those of the author.”
I’m still trying to figure out what that’s all about.
Political differences are the most obvious, but someone who believes in fairies writing about someone who doesn’t does qualify. As for fantasy authors, a republican (note, small r) author whose hero was a staunch monarchist would qualify. Or, for example, imagine if John Norman were actually a Womens’ Libber.
Machiavelli was who I first thought of as well. There’s been a school of thought for a while (pre-Cracked, even) that The Prince was meant as social satire rather than as a straightforward political treatise.
I think the differences between Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who kept a mind so open that it turned into a rubbish bin) and Sherlock Holmes (a poster boy for coldly analytical rationality) is more fundamental that a difference on one question of fact.
Speaking of Joss Whedon – for an atheist, he has done a lot to revive the supernatural in pop culture.
If I recall correctly, Clarke explained his disclaimer twofold in the following years: he believed, in contrast to a statement by Karellen (who was called Clarke’s voice by some critics), that humanity was suited for an expansion into space. But he was sceptical about ESP, in contrast to its presentation as a real phenomenon in the book.
When I was still in school, I gave the book to someone born half a century too late. He didn’t get it either. You always know where you stand with an -ism, whose disciples have no sense of irony.
He is? Do you have a cite for that? I’m a Whedonite and don’t remember Joss making any overt political statements, unless you count his Equality Now speech about feminism.
What are the obvious reasons? Do you think all romance authors must be romantics at heart, that novels in the romance genre don’t profess beliefs (political or otherwise), or that people who read romance novels aren’t interested in these sorts of discussions? Or is there some other obvious reason I can’t think of?
Anyway, I agree with wintertime. It’d be easier to list authors who had characters whose beliefs specifically lined up with their own. I don’t really see what’s noteworthy about, say, Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes. Sure he might have believed a lot of bullshit, but that doesn’t imply anything particularly weird or interesting about his ability to write a man like Holmes. That’s the power of imagination. It’s like asking “Musicians whose works profess beliefs antithetical to their own.” Johnny Cash probably didn’t advocate shooting innocent men just to watch them die.
HP Lovecraft’s stories are full of secrets man was not meant to know, indescribable cosmic horrors, and superfluous italics but he was actually an atheist and scientific materialist. The racism that shows up from time to time is genuine, though.
Well, that’s not really true anymore. Most of the biggest selling romance authors write books that are stretched across three, four, five, or even a dozen or more books. Norah Roberts, Charlene Harris, Laurell K Hamilton, JD Robb, JR Ward, Patricia Biggs to name a few.
