Lost Children Archive: Where to begin?

This book has been my favorite so far. It has been really challenging to read and intriguing, I am spending more time on it than I expected. Each little “chapter”/section gives a lot to think about. I found the section “Routes and Roots” to present themes that we see throughout the book. A lot of them are presented by this woman narrator, of whom I haven’t found the name of, and we basically read an exposition of her thoughts and interpretations. So far I haven’t read any book like this. With His Pistol In His Hand holds some resemblance to this book, in the way it is structures, however it is a dissertation whereas this book seems to be part nonfiction and fiction. The part that I assume is fiction is the backstory of this family, however all of the works that are mentioned in the inventory of the boxes, the places they travel to, the “lost children” are true. Is the backstory of this family, their trip, true as well? The polaroid photos correspond to scenes in the book “The picture comes out in shades of brown: sepia, ecru, wheat, and sand. (…) they look as though they are not really there, like they are being remembered instead of photographed.” (p.68)

There is this focus on capturing, recording, memory, collecting, languages and tongues, pronouns, maps, directions, the Apaches, archives, etc., and I think most importantly children. It seems as if this book exists to archive a series of experiences, concepts, the lost children, and how this family of four puts the very nature of the world into question. The very idea of family is in question, of what destiny is, of where the road takes them in life. I have reread a few sections and I always find different underlying meanings, or questions. I think so far, this book seems to present more of what seems like a series of questions and tentative answers. The children seem to possess most of the answers. The protagonist/narrator really analyzes what her daughter and stepson tell her, how they are the ones that reprimand her and make her see the world clearly.

I am still trying to understand the relationships in this family. At certain points we see how the woman and the daughter are one whole and then the separate whole being the “husband” and “the boy”. Other times she feels a maternal bond to the boy, even though he is not her biological son. The wife and the husband see themselves as “passing strangers” that live their lives in parallel. Another aspect of this unconnected existence is in the section on pronouns at the beginning of the book “(…)pronouns shifted constantly in our confused syntax while we negotiated the terms of the relocation. We started speaking more hesitant about everything (…)” (p.26). So far I only have pieces of what this book might mean to me and how it is found in the world. I don’t know if they are right, I don’t know nor do I understand this, this is completely uncharted territory for me and I find myself following the thoughts of the narrator, as they are written on paper, as if I were experiencing and thinking things over with her.

I do see purpose and meaning in this book, and the work the narrator does, I think that is something the narrator holds dear to her heart and what gives her doubt about her marriage. She wants to archive, record, the struggles of living beings whereas she describes her husband as one who follows ghosts. That is an interesting perspective, maybe it will change by the end, or maybe not. There is more to debate there.