the nightmare alphabet

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

the nightmare alphabet is the third of a series beginning with the inks and the pencils and the looking back (1978) and the story’s dream (1983). Called a work of fiction, it combines prose with poetry to portray a world of nightmare and madness in a growing boy.

Throughout the book, the letters of the alphabet — all except J, which is omitted for no apparent reason — are personified in segments separated by the ongoing story of a boy’s birth and development into puberty. Each letter assumes its own individuality: a “B of rounded / fatness bolls / about,” “a towering / T / a T / of tenderness / and toughness.” Some of the letters, especially the “sharpened blade” of the A, are threatening and horrific.

The alphabet becomes a nightmare to the boy, something growing and alive within him which he must struggle to contain. Although ostensibly “normal,” he will not make a sound and refuses to look at written words. The power of the letters contained within him ebbs and flows but never fully recedes as he grows into puberty. It soon becomes clear to the reader that the boy is struggling with madness: “the helplessness of sanity to deal with madness. the hopelessness of men who try to talk with whales.”

Following the boy’s journey through nightmares and madness is terrifying. Ever hopeful, the reader yearns for a happy ending, for something to help the boy. The reader feels sympathy and helplessness and unfailing hope. The author, at the end, does offer us a crumb of hope: “picture this. a happy family walking through a field. In the father’s eye a tiny glint of something no one knows.” He has triumphed, and we have felt a little of his hopelessness.