In her analysis of what it means to get lost and how we pass on these ideas, Solnit examines colonial captive narratives from Spanish North America and Puritan New England, dissecting both the loneliness their authors experienced as outsiders on a different continent and how readers interpreted the stories once they entered print. 22).Discussing the work of a historian, Solnit writes, “It could be best served not by claiming an authoritative and disinterested relationship to the facts, but by disclosing your own desires and agendas, for truth lies not only in incidents but in hopes and needs” (pg.

Losing things is about the familiar falling away, getting lost is about the unfamiliar appearing” (pg. Furthermore, “Lost really has two disparate meanings. Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction, and somewhere in the terra incognita in between lies a life of discovery” (pg.

She writes, “The question then is how to get lost. The book is part memoir and part philosophy, examining moments in her own life as well as themes from historical and philosophical thought. In A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit examines the differing ideas of being lost and how one finds one’s place in the world. The result is a distinctive, stimulating voyage of discovery. While deeply personal, her own stories link up to larger stories, from captivity narratives of early Americans to the use of the color blue in Renaissance painting, not to mention encounters with tortoises, monks, punk rockers, mountains, deserts, and the movie Vertigo. Solnit is interested in the stories we use to navigate our way through the world, and the places we traverse, from wilderness to cities, in finding ourselves, or losing ourselves. Written as a series of autobiographical essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost draws on emblematic moments and relationships in Rebecca Solnit's life to explore issues of uncertainty, trust, loss, memory, desire, and place. “An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” - Los Angeles Timesįrom the award-winning author of Orwell's Roses, a stimulating exploration of wandering, being lost, and the uses of the unknown

Rebecca solnit a field guide