A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Pretty amazing book. Solnit approaches “lost” as more than an epistemological concept directly outwards. She wraps this conception around itself and demonstrates through as series of vignettes, allegories and musings (personal, historical, sociological, literary) in order exemplify aspects of being lost, which includes losing being, place, direction, knowledge, feeling and familiarity.
I was terribly awed by her wide reaching “direction” as she navigates us on how to get lost, or how others did it. What’s interesting is that she doesn’t seem to lose direction either.
Rhetorically and philosophically, Solnit is able to utilize environmental decoherence to defamiliarize the centerpiece subject. The original mark in a story, which is often a person, or a direction, is waxed in different territorial contexts until you literally lose place. At that point your sense of center is gone with it. I guess what keeps you from getting lost is that Solnit is always able to keep your attention focused on what was, and what will be. Those fixed points of reference allow her to transition smoothly forward and backwards, highlighting in the process what getting lost does to a subject. Her strength of direction afforded me, the reader, to let her guide me along. Very well done.
There is a mystic sounding voice to her writing, as if a love letter (another commentator said) and if you trust that intimate tone she sets for us, the pages will swallow you whole. You’ll find time slowly disappearing in this book as you start to get lost.
Admittedly, some of the tid-bits she brings up seem strained but some of the other ones, which are well researched and well put more than make up for their weaker transitional ligamentation.
If you want to get lost in a book, ironically, this is one to do it!
