A Field Guide to Getting Lost

In what ways does the recurring image of “the blue of distance” challenge readers to think differently about longing, desire, and fulfillment?

Solnit writes about landscapes, deserts, and wilderness. How do these spaces operate as metaphors for uncertainty, and how do they compare to how other American writers have used nature, such as Henry David, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and/or Annie Dillard?

Solnit often interweaves her personal memories with cultural analysis. What does this suggest about the relationship between private experience and collective history?

Silence and absence appear throughout the book. How might silence be interpreted as both emptiness and presence, and what cultural or philosophical traditions does this resonate with?

Solnit claims that one cannot live if one does not get lost. How might this statement be applied beyond the personal to politics, culture, and/or social change? How does Solnit challenge cultural obsessions with mastery, control, and certainty? What alternative vision does she propose?

How does Solnit’s writing style mirror the very theme of “getting lost”? Analyze the narrative style and literary techniques she employs to create an atmosphere of disorientation and discovery.

How might Solnit’s emphasis on wandering and disorientation be read as a feminist critique of traditional narratives of order, progress, and mastery? How does this work fit into her other feminist writings?

How does Solnit’s biography contextualize the work? How might her experiences in the Bay Area punk scene and activism have shaped her emphasis on improvisation and risk in the work?