It’s an unlikely story. Serious and highly regarded reporter writes a memoir that details not the horrors of war nor the vicissitudes of political journalism, but the arcane minutiae of a parallel life spent surfing. Somehow he manages to make it intelligible and interesting to a general readership. Even more improbably, he does so without losing credibility among other surfers. The book wins a Pulitzer Prize — the first, and surely the last, to be won by a piece of surf writing — and is included on then-President Barack Obama’s summer reading list.
- William Finnegan Barbarian Days Review
- Barbarian Days A Surfers Life
- William Finnegan Barbarian Days Movie
- William Finnegan Author
William Finnegan Barbarian Days Review
William Finnegan first started surfing as a young boy in California and Hawaii. Barbarian Days is his immersive memoir of a life spent travelling the world chasing waves through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa and beyond. Finnegan describes the edgy yet enduring brotherhood forged among the swell of the surf; and recalling his own. Barbarian Days WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY 2016WINNER OF THE 2016 WILLIAM HILL SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR PRIZESurfing only looks like a sport. To devotees, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a mental and physical study, a passionate way of life.William Finnegan first started surfing as a young boy in California. Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. WILLIAM FINNEGAN is the author of Cold New World, A Complicated War, Dateline Soweto, and Crossing the Line. He has twice been a National Magazine Award finalist and has won numerous journalism awards, including two Overseas Press Club awards since 2009.
But then the story William Finnegan had to tell wasn’t a particularly likely one either, even if the full extent of its unlikeliness has been lost on most non-surfing readers. Perhaps surfing double-overhead Honolua whilst off one’s tits on acid was par for the course among sunburnt pagans in the 1970s, but probably not. And stumbling across the island of Tavarua certainly wasn’t, turquoise-tinted glasses notwithstanding. In his mid ‘20s, Finnegan became one of the very first surfers to ride the wave later named Restaurants. He and his friend Bryan Di Salvatore — who in another unlikely coincidence would end up, like Finnegan, on the staff of The New Yorker — had it to themselves for weeks.
It was the scoop of the century, although it wasn’t until six years later that, despite their best efforts, and much to their annoyance, it hit the front pages, Tavarua splashed across the cover of Surfer’s December ’84 edition. Since then, Finnegan has added to his role of secret keeper that of secret sharer. Apart from his classic 1992 New Yorker piece “Playing Doc’s Games”, and the award-winning Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, he has largely avoided writing about surfing. Instead he has reported on apartheid in South Africa, war in Mozambique and Sudan, drug trafficking in Mexico, human trafficking in Moldova, poverty and cultural conflict in the United States. If President Trump had a reading list, Finnegan would not be on it.
Which brings us nicely round to the subject of barbarians, and the many contradictions entailed by that word and its variants. In the closing paragraphs of The Malay Archipelago, his 19th century account of scientific discovery in Indonesia and thereabouts, the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace concluded that the West could claim no “real or important superiority over the better class of savages”.“Compared with our wondrous progress in physical science and its practical applications,” he wrote, “our system of government, of administering justice, of national education, and our whole social and moral organisation, remains in a state of barbarism.” Finnegan — who has conducted research of his own in the Malay Archipelago, and for whom the critique of our social and moral organisation has long been a central concern — has characterised surfing as “a track that led away from citizenship, in the ancient sense of the word, toward a scratched out frontier where we would live as latter-day barbarians.” And what was it Morrissey said on the matter, in The Smiths’ superbly titled “Barbarism Begins at Home”? “Unruly boys who will not grow up must be taken in hand.”
Finnegan grew up eventually, but only after a fashion. Indeed, Barbarian Days is in large part a chronicle of his struggle to square the unruliness of youth with the responsibilities of adulthood and citizenship.
He was recently in Europe and San Sebastián, where he collected a literary prize awarded by Basque Country booksellers, and later spoke at the city’s aquarium at the invitation of the council. After the talk, I found him in a dimly lit aquarium corridor as he contemplated a particularly venomous scorpionfish. He gave me an email address and some learned advice about the dangers of tropical sea creatures. Worried that he might be tiring of long-winded interviews about his most recent book, I foolishly attempted to steer things in the direction of puerility, sending him a list of brief and desultory questions. I was duly taken in hand. “These questions, not to put too fine a point on it, are shite,” came his reply. He kindly invited me to send him some more, resulting in the following exchange.
*****
I just read William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days, a fine memoir of his surfing life. I recommend it highly. I’m an unabashed fan, like so many others who read his 1992 two-part essay in The New Yorker called Playing Doc’s Games, which detailed Finnegan’s complex negotiation between his life as a hard-core surfer and an up-and-coming writer. It was a singular milestone because it was the one and only piece that I had ever seen which transcended the surfing milieu as a genre — every other artistic attempt, whether painting or cinema or literature, invariably issued whiffs of kitsch, however faint. I was thrilled and blown away when I read Playing Doc's Games, and not alone in my reaction. Those of us who actually grew up surfing felt a powerful affinity for Finnegan’s authenticity, and those of us who scorned the marketing copy that usually spoke for our game were thrilled to hear an actual literary voice on the page.
In 1997 my old friend Peter Spacek surfed a December swell with me in Santa Barbara while he escaped from the Long Island winter cold. I mentioned Finnegan’s New Yorker article and raved about it. “That thing was so damn good! I’m going to try and write to that guy to tell him!” Spacek kind of chuckled. “I know Bill. We're taking a surf trip together in a few weeks, why don’t you come along and tell him in person?” With that turn of events, I subsequently enjoyed several days in conversation with Finnegan while we roomed together and surfed to exhaustion all around a distant Atlantic island. I had read some of his other articles and books, and was curious to ask him about all sorts of things. He had lived in Africa (I had lived in Africa), he had surfed in Fiji (I had surfed in Fiji), he had gone to UC Santa Cruz (I had gone to UC Santa Cruz) -- there were lots of parallels, and I had a grand time sharing and comparing. I was impressed by the adept way that he cross-referenced and fact-checked everything as a matter of course, even when doing something as simple as asking directions of a peasant girl on a country road. There were some golden moments, but one of my favorites occurred after the two of us surfed one of the large and perilous points alone. Once the sun set, we faced a tiring half-mile paddle back to the fishing village where the road began. We swung way out into nighttime’s deep black water to avoid getting caught by sets or pushed by the side-shore currents, and then settled into a long and steady pace that allowed us to converse freely while still making important progress homeward. I was keenly aware and yet serenely unconcerned that opposite the tiny flickering lights of the fishing village off of our starboard bow was an unbroken expanse of fathomless Atlantic ocean that flowed all the way to Antarctica. We just paddled and talked in the dark, and finally, almost wordlessly, hauled ourselves out onto the slippery stone quay.
Time and again, in magnificent sequences that eventually encircle the planet, he tries to deliver an honest and sincere account of his experience, weaving his interior perceptions through the objectively structural facts of the matter.
When I was a young boy, in the late 1950s, my father worked as a Long Beach Lifeguard while he put himself through grad school. Besides the dedicated lifers, his colleagues were an eclectic bunch of jazz drummers, painters, beat poets, architects, wave riders, and other cultural loose ends. Their whole lifeguard trip had a wonderfully romantic aura to it, and I remember one of the themes that they pondered was the question of whether or not this quality could be represented in a novel or a painting or a song. The general consensus was “no way,” or at least not in any genuine sense that would be meaningful to people who lived it. The real thing -- the sound, the light, the scents, the forces -- was just so sublime as to defy communication. I carried that question with me through life, and asked it often with respect to surfing. I was continuously disappointed with the answer until I came across Finnegan’s approach, and it renewed my hope.
Barbarian Days A Surfers Life
In his new memoir Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, Finnegan is explicit that “nearly all of what happens in the water is ineffable – language is no help.” And yet, what is a writer to do? Time and again, in magnificent sequences that eventually encircle the planet, he tries to deliver an honest and sincere account of his experience, weaving his interior perceptions through the objectively structural facts of the matter. If language isn’t sufficient to handle it all, it’s not for lack of skill on his part. As a professional reporter, he’s obliged to explain and translate for the non-surfing reader, and certain passages accommodate that duty, as for example when he explains the mysterious ways in which surfers judge and describe wave heights. But when he isn’t taking care of matters-of-fact, his writing sticks close to the personal memoir, which has a lucidly lyrical quality. His introspection is fluent and telling, and perhaps it was these passages which beckoned the ineffable more than any others in my read.
William Finnegan Barbarian Days Movie
“Barbarian Days” is the story of a series of overlapping companionships. It’s a picture of Finnegan in relation to, which is an order of magnitude more complex and interesting than simple “look at me.”
Abbyy lingvo x5 download. Surfing is a profoundly selfish pursuit. Its lore is fraught with superlatives. Older riders quickly become “legends,” because their youthful exploits were “epic.” The beautiful wave right in front of one’s eyes can easily be a “classic.” Any given surf spot can sustain a throng of narcissists and sociopaths. Self-mythologizing is rampant, and yet the average surfer is the least qualified to make that judgement of self. That may partly account for all of the artistic shortfalls which disappoint me. Nevertheless, in something of a paradox given that he’s written a surfing memoir, William Finnegan manages to avoid that embarrassment. I think he has achieved that for two chief reasons -- the first being his formidable skill as a reporter, and years of experience and practice at situating himself inside other larger scenes without hogging the frame, as it were. And second, Barbarian Days is the story of a series of overlapping companionships. It’s a picture of Finnegan in relation to, which is an order of magnitude more complex and interesting than simple “look at me.” The best of the book’s motion and progress occur as he negotiates other people’s terms, and the core body of his surfing adventures are intricately tied to specific characters who shape and energize and cast his circumstance. I can’t help believing that, without such characters, his surfing fate would have been less fortuitous and noteworthy -- who can say? But there’s a life lesson in there if you can read it. Choose your travel companions wisely, and valorous good fortune may find you too on the road.
I only stayed in touch with Bill for a while after we surfed together, but I paid attention to his ongoing work. I eagerly scanned each fresh issue of the New Yorker for his byline, and I noted with excitement that he was preparing a memoir of his life as a surfer. I was confident that it would be a superb piece of literature, and a mainstay of its kind. Now having read the book, all of the questions that I was unable to broach with him years ago have been answered in full. My sense of what can be done with the surfing genre is restored. And as for grasping at the ineffable, I’m no longer disappointed in the form – Barbarian Days is a legendary classic epic.
William Finnegan Author
Artist and film producer Dirk Brandts lives in Santa Barbara, California. In 2009 he abandoned hard boards and surrendered to destiny in order to ride surf mats full time. William Finnegan's Barbarian Days is published by Penguin Press and is available for purchase here.