Sarah Zuckerman
October 12, 2013
Research Methodologies AVT 600
Assignment #9
Summary and Response: "A Field Guide to Getting Lost" by Rebecca Solnit
In the novel, A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit, the reader encounters an array of histories, natural history, lore, and art criticism all mixed through a string of personal narratives. The imagery described in hyper detail, and the use of repetition brings home the ideas at hand. Descriptions of blue skies, horizon lines and their relation to memory, the intangible, and longing bring to light emotions that are associated with the blue of distance. Her poetic prose engages the reader and provokes thought about getting lost. She nearly implores with the reader about that necessity, the absolute need to lose what you are, what you know, where you are, in order to gain a better understanding of ones self.
Her personal narratives describe her history, something that seems ever changing based on her memory, and the stories and memories of others in her family. She concentrates most upon her grandmother whom had a changing history in her mind, based on where she was in her life and the stories being told to her. She writes about the idea of captivity in the 1800's, about invaders of North America, and the seemingly unlikely families formed through conditions of being lost.
This novel has really been something I have found myself able to relate to; the shifting of memory, the ideas of loss and longing, displacement, and family. I really find myself drawn to the statement: "... the process of transformation consists almost entirely of decay.' But the butterfly is so fit an emblem of the human soul that its name in Greek is psyche, the word for soul" (81 Solnit). To think that a process of becoming, transforming, changing relates to the decay of something that once was is an important aspect in what I am currently doing now. Exploring memories in search of what was to help find out, possibly, what is, possibly, in terms of soul.
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