Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
Ratings46
Average rating4.3
My favorite book of this year and possibly now in my top 10 of all time. A billion stars. And I don't even surf.
“I was not afraid, I just didn't want this to end”
I have no doubt one of the most special and meaningful books I've ever read.
Will update with a full review.
If Finnegan wasn't a staff writer at the New Yorker, I wonder if this would have been a Pulitzer winner. Memoirs are navel-gazing at their core but this one felt especially so. I tried not to compare it to this year's Pulitzer winner for the same category – [b:The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between 28007895 The Return Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between Hisham Matar https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1457891417s/28007895.jpg 48015462] – and failed. I'm looking forward to discussing this with book club this weekend, but this one was Not For Me.
I was curious about how a book focused on surfing could win a Pulitzer, but in spite of the surfing details (or maybe because of them), it turned out to be absorbing. I liked reading about his youth in Hawaii the best; it gets a little dry near the end.
This book is filled with lovely writing that captures the author's awe and respect of the ocean, and his lifelong obsession with surfing. The prose is at once winding and meditative as it is forceful and reckoning, much like waves themselves. Being a (hitherto) lifelong competitive runner, I can also relate to the obsessive dedication to a physical pursuit; however, his nearly scientific knowledge of the ocean, and the terminology of surf culture, and the adventures of various elite beaches across the world was previously wholly unknown to me; so in that way, the book is an invitation into a completely different lifestyle. Each beach, with unique waves that the author describes in great detail, become more than setting, evolving into powerful characters that yet resist anthropomorphism. Yet, I did find myself getting a bit tired of the writing style, which grew more indulgent with each chapter. While each wave is described differently, the prose starts to feel recursive halfway through, I suppose like the waves themselves. Still worth a read, I think, if for nothing else than to read majesty and nuance and depth into what (I, at least) have always considered a bro culture.
Must read for surfer, and everyone who wants to know what makes surfing so addictive. This book captures like no other why surfing is a way of living, not a sport. Also beautifully written.
Solid read. I read it because it was about surfing, which fascinates me, but wanted less surfing and more Finnegan doing his reporting by the end. The best surfing section, was the cold water surfing he does outside of New York, and one particularly intense surfing section off of Portugal.
How much of your life have you spent thinking about surfing? Until a week ago my life total could've been measured in seconds. By Tuesday, having completed this review and my post-reading digestion, I fully expect to return to a life in which surfing occupies as much of my thoughts as does cricket or the economy of Kuala Lumpur. Barbarian Days has not changed my life course in any way; if anything, it makes it even less likely that I'll ever even try surfing. Not because it sounds dull—quite the contrary!—but because it's clear that the peak rewards are only for those with years to spend on it and with youthful strength and vigor.
Yet I don't in the least begrudge my hours of reading. Surfing turns out to be much more interesting than I'd imagined; more complex and profound. Part of that is Finnegan himself: it turns out, you can spend your young years as a bum, following a passion, outside the system, and still lead a meaningful life; even contributing (more than most!) to the wellbeing of our fellows. Finnegan's is a life well lived, his book a reminder that this life is too precious to waste.
