"From the Case Files. . ."

Cognitive dissonance

It’s really the only term that describes what I feel when my opinion of a writer’s work collides with the reality of who that writer is.

I remember the first time it happened. I was a sophomore in college and heard that Orson Scott Card was giving a lecture in the Student Center. I was (still am) a huge fan of SF and Fantasy, and to me Card was one of the luminaries, one of the major deities of the SF pantheon, an equal who stood beside the likes of Asimov, Pohl, perhaps even Herbert.

Card’s book, Ender’s Game, was a defining moment in my life. The tale of the young prodigy, Ender Wiggins, and his journey from geeky little kid to savior of humanity was just what I needed at the time. And I’m not just saying that because the book is set at least partly in Guilford Middle School, which just happened to be my middle school. Yep, it exists. Ender and I went to the same school! (Card is a Greensboro native.) 

For lack of a better term, the book empowered me, helped convince me that I, geeky little kid that I was, could make a difference in the world. At the same time it gave me the wisdom to be cautious, to not let myself be manipulated by others for their own ends, and to practice tolerance, to look for the humanity even in my enemies.

So I was, needless to say, quivering with excitement at the prospect of actually meeting the man responsible for such a book. His lecture was called "1000 Ideas in an Hour" and the stated purpose was to show how easy and fun it can be to develop a plot for an entire novel by using various methods of brainstorming.

And for the first 15 minutes it was everything I hoped it would be. Here I was with about 10 or 11 other star struck would be writers, tossing story ideas back and forth with a Grand Master of the form. Science heroes were created, empires developed, whole living suns and their attendant spheres flamed into existence.

Then we got to plot complications.

Someone suggested, merely suggested: global warming.

The rest of the lecture was spent listening to Card harangue about the faulty, evil, and downright maliciousness of global warming science (using hastily drawn pictures of carbon molecules and air currents) and how any scientist who believed it was a quack. I wasn’t sure myself about the facts of global warming back then, but even I could tell that his "facts" were shoddy at best.

But that’s neither here nor there. It wasn’t his disagreement with global warming that shocked me. It was the sudden showing of intolerance from the man who helped teach me tolerance in his books. The belief that an entire category of scientists was not just honestly mistaken, but willfully so, trying to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes.

I’ve had similar experience with other luminaries. Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and the marvelous Dandelion Wine, comes to mind, with his defense of a congressman sexually harassing his secretaries, saying there’s nothing wrong with a little slap on the butt. Dan Simmons, who wrote the incredible Hyperion, is the latest with a disturbing polemic thinly cloaked in a short story.

Part of me is disappointed, of course, that a writer does not live up to the expectations I glean from their books. Then again, we’re human. We all fail when it comes to expectations. There is wisdom in the saying, do not look too closely for the writer in his work.

But there is another part of me that takes comfort in this cognitive dissonance. A part of me that is filled with hope at the thought that we writers, no matter how flawed or screwy or imperfect we are, are still capable of writing something good. Something beautiful.

And occasionally, if we're lucky, that something is more beautiful than us.