How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Facts about evacuees in Alberta? The fact is I never got used to it and I cannot, I cannot bear the memory. There are some nightmares from which there is no waking, only deeper and deeper sleep. (29.8)
Throughout the novel we are presented with two versions of reality that contradict one another. Here, we get "facts" about evacuees in Alberta versus Naomi's memories of how much they sucked. By saying that her life on the sugar beet farm was a nightmare, Naomi discounts the official "facts." The real facts here are her feelings about the time.
Quote #8
Those years on the Barker farm, my late childhood growing-up days, are sleepwalk years, a time of half dream. (30.1)
We guess we wouldn't want to remember toiling on a sugar beet farm either. Not only do Naomi's dreams foreshadow reality, but apparently Naomi's reality is almost like a dream. In other words, there isn't very much of a boundary between the dream world and the real world.
Quote #9
[...] Stephen leapt out of bed in the middle of the night yelling, "I've got to get out of here," and ran down the road away from the farm in the dark. [...] He said when he came back he'd had a nightmare. Something about a metallic insect the size of a tractor, webbing a grid of iron bars over him. (Later, he told me he had the same nightmare again, but escaped the web by turning the bars into a xylophone.) (33.64)
Someone besides Naomi has a dream, for once. So tell us, dreams sleuths, what's up with the iron bars and the xylophone? Could they have anything to do with Stephen's kick-butt music career?