#lack of dialogue in HPL's tales

[hplovecraftmuseum]

It has been said by several critics that H. P. Lovecraft could not write dialogue. Certainly the type of dialogue that we see commonly in various and sundry novels by popular writers is missing or considerably truncated in Lovecraft's stories. There is, however, a very good reason for that. The majority of HPL's tales are narratives told by a single person. Entering the mind of that narrator is almost always key to the whole telling of the tale. We are told not so much what our hero - or perhaps more rightly 'victim' - says but rather how he 'feels' as the tale progresses. We 'become' the narrator, seeing what he sees from his lone perspective (Lovecraft's narrators are never female, but they are very rarely common salt of the earth males either). Our new 'self' is exposed to wondrous and eventually horrible conditions and "TRUTHS" the likes of which we ourselves have never previously experienced. Because of this alienation from 'normal' reality our loneliness and dislocation from others of our species deepens. Conversation between two or more individuals cannot describe in depth the emotion and evaluations of our respective fictional hero in full. Certainly there are brief examples of dialogue in Lovecraft's stories but even these usually amount more to "speeches" than conversations. The story told by the town drunk, Zadok Allen in THE SHADOW OVER INSMOUTH is a perfect example. I liken that speech almost to the famed narrative of Capt. Quint below decks in the movie JAWS. Again, Lovecraft's stories were mostly short. Dialogue in short tales of horror generally becomes confusing and brakes the tension and flow of 'atmosphere'. For Lovecraft, atmosphere was the absolute key element in any tale or horror. Dialogue has its place in novels perhaps, but HPL wrote only one real novel in his life and that did not see publication until years after his death. Again, when we enter the mind of one of Lovecraft's characters we almost always find ourselves sharing the thoughts, feelings, and perspective, of a person oftentimes more intelligent, sensitive, erudite, and perhaps for a little while closer to losing their sanity than we will ever be. IF WE ARE LUCKY! (Exhibit 478)