Are there any examples of novels written in a monologue?

[DAgent]

So I recently went on a writing course where we did quite a few readings of monologues ala Alan Bennett, and had a go at writing some ourselves. I found I quite liked it, and wanted to try to read some more, but I've not been able to find any Sci Fi or Fantasy genre novels or collection of short stories in monologue form.

Any one got any recommendations?

 

[Yozh]

Can you explain more? Is the "monologue" format different from just first person narrator? Like in works of Poe say The Cask of Amontillado ?

 

[AllanR]

My first thought isn't toward a whole novel, rather to chapters in a novel. I.E. in The Idiot by Dostoevsky there is an 11 page chapter that is a monologue. It also only has two paragraphs. Oddly enough, it flows well.

 

[PaulMmn]

There were at least 2 sci-fi stories written in monologue-- perhaps just first person narrator. Both were single men, telling the stories of how they got where they were.
.
One, man on the moon keeping watch over a nuclear weapon stockpile, slowly dying of the radiation he was exposed to. He was dedicated to civilization and preventing its destruction. One of the golden age authors. Heinlein maybe?
.
Two, a man on a space station outside the orbit of Pluto, running the terminus of an interstellar transport network. "The Second Kind of Loneliness" by George R.R. Martin - from the December 1972 Analog science fiction magazine. Kelly Freas cover.
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Both stories may have had a final postscript paragraph not part of the monologue.
.
Side note-- most surprising thing about artist Kelly Freas is that he created some of the most iconic images of the 1960s-- covers of Alfred E Neuman for MAD Magazine. He also did some nice portraits of the stars of the original Star Trek.

 

[The Big Peat]

Being mildly unsure as to whether there's any difference between a first person narrator and a monologue - perhaps a sense that the narrator is giving the story after, rather than as it goes - I would point at John Langan's The Fisterman and Stephen King's Duma Key where the narration feels quite monologuey.

 

[Yozh]

The bulk of H.G. Wells The Time Machine is in the form of a monologue. There’s two brief introductory chapters with a group asking questions of the time traveler, and then it’s him recounting his tale to them, each paragraph in quotes.

 

[hitmouse]

There were at least 2 sci-fi stories written in monologue-- perhaps just first person narrator. Both were single men, telling the stories of how they got where they were.
.
One, man on the moon keeping watch over a nuclear weapon stockpile, slowly dying of the radiation he was exposed to. He was dedicated to civilization and preventing its destruction. One of the golden age authors. Heinlein maybe?
.
Two, a man on a space station outside the orbit of Pluto, running the terminus of an interstellar transport network. "The Second Kind of Loneliness" by George R.R. Martin - from the December 1972 Analog science fiction magazine. Kelly Freas cover.
.
Both stories may have had a final postscript paragraph not part of the monologue.
.
Side note-- most surprising thing about artist Kelly Freas is that he created some of the most iconic images of the 1960s-- covers of Alfred E Neuman for MAD Magazine. He also did some nice portraits of the stars of the original Star Trek.

The first story you mention is probably The Green Hills of Earth, which you correctly identify as Heinlein. I dont remember that as a monologue, but it is 40 years since I read it.

 

[hitmouse]

Try The 13 and a Half Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers, most, if not all of which is a monologue.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Quite a lot of The Name of the Wind is written as a monologue—the hero relating his life story to someone who has come to chronicle it.

 

[The Judge]

There were at least 2 sci-fi stories written in monologue-- perhaps just first person narrator. Both were single men, telling the stories of how they got where they were.
.
One, man on the moon keeping watch over a nuclear weapon stockpile, slowly dying of the radiation he was exposed to. He was dedicated to civilization and preventing its destruction. One of the golden age authors. Heinlein maybe?

The first story you mention is probably The Green Hills of Earth, which you correctly identify as Heinlein. I dont remember that as a monologue, but it is 40 years since I read it.

The Green Hills of Earth is the story about Rhysling, the blind singer who is travelling with the chief jetman when the jets go wrong and he has to take over -- he does die of radiation after saving the ship, but it's not out of dedication to civilisation.

The story PaulMmn is talking of is in the Heinlein anthology The Green Hills of Earth, though, which may have caused the confusion. That story is The Long Watch about Johhny Dahlquist who does prevent a coup. But it's not written as a monologue.

 

[Toby Frost]

Being mildly unsure as to whether there's any difference between a first person narrator and a monologue

Me too. My first thought was the Raymond Chandler crime novels, which are told in the first person with a distinctive narrator. I'm not sure whether they count as monologues, though, as Philip Marlowe isn't stated to be telling the story to anyone in particular. If a monologue has to be told to someone, how about Heart of Darkness?

 

[JunkMonkey]

There were at least 2 sci-fi stories written in monologue-- perhaps just first person narrator. Both were single men, telling the stories of how they got where they were.
.
One, man on the moon keeping watch over a nuclear weapon stockpile, slowly dying of the radiation he was exposed to. He was dedicated to civilization and preventing its destruction. One of the golden age authors. Heinlein maybe?

The Long Watch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

EDIT: I really should read to the end of the thread shouldn't I?

 

[JunkMonkey]

Me too. My first thought was the Raymond Chandler crime novels, which are told in the first person with a distinctive narrator. I'm not sure whether they count as monologues, though, as Philip Marlowe isn't stated to be telling the story to anyone in particular. If a monologue has to be told to someone, how about Heart of Darkness?

Or any other (Victorian Era in particular) novels that address the reader directly.

"Call me Ishmael."

 

[Toby Frost]

Good point. I picked Heart of Darkness because it's got the a framing story, like The Time Machine, where the hero is literally recounting his adventures to some onlookers. But I don't think you'd have to have that for it to be a monologue.

 

[hitmouse]

The Green Hills of Earth is the story about Rhysling, the blind singer who is travelling with the chief jetman when the jets go wrong and he has to take over -- he does die of radiation after saving the ship, but it's not out of dedication to civilisation.

The story PaulMmn is talking of is in the Heinlein anthology The Green Hills of Earth, though, which may have caused the confusion. That story is The Long Watch about Johhny Dahlquist who does prevent a coup. But it's not written as a monologue.

You are correct. I had forgotten that there were 2 stories with a similar plot device.

 

[paranoid marvin]

As far as I was aware, a monologue is a long speech delivered to others that expects no interruption from others. I think that Alan Bennett's work is classed as 'monologues' for two reasons. Firstly, that they were intended to be delivered verbally, second that they are designed to sound like they are being spoken to friends in conversation.

I'm not sure there is any story which was intended to be written down could properly be described as a 'monologue' in my opinion. Otherwise any 'first person' narrated story would class as such.

 

[soulsinging]

Pale Fire by Nabakov is a great example of this. The book is nuts!