I knew vaguely that it filled a psychic cavity of some kind - connected, perhaps, with leaving the church, or with, more likely, the slow drift away from my family - and that it had replaced many things that came before it. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. In "Barbarian Days," Finnegan writes of his boyhood and young adulthood in California and Hawaii, where he tries to find his place in the surfing tribe.Īs he does, he realizes that he is compelled by the "deep mine of beauty and wonder" in surfing, though "(b)eyond that, I could not have explained why I did it. To initiates, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Publication date 2015 Topics Finnegan, William, Surfers - United States - Biography Publisher New York : Penguin Press. On my knees in the sand, in the twilight, absolutely spent, I was surprised to find myself sobbing." Barbarian days : a surfing life by Finnegan, William, author. Here's Finnegan, recalling being a young man, far from home, riding a particularly majestic wave as dark falls on an unpeopled island: "On the beach, I got only halfway to our campsite. To be sure, the dry world does intrude on "Barbarian Days" - family, work, politics, writing, even travel to non-surfing locales.īut it is always drawn back, like the author, to the ocean.
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