“Waves are not stationary objects in nature like roses or diamonds. They’re quick, violent events at the end of a long chain of storm action and ocean reaction. Even the most symmetrical breaks have quirks and a totally specific, local character, changing with every shift in tide and wind and swell.”
William Finnegan's autobiography is much a discussion of mortality as it as a love letter to surfing, with the melodic prose speaking to the spiritual experience of the sport and where it has taken him in his life.
"Barbarian Days" documents the violence that seemed to be a natural element of the author's upbringing, and the way it sparked his desire to experience the world at an incredibly young age. The Pulitzer Prize-winning work follows his travails across the world in his quixotic quest for the great unexplored wave.
“Big waves are violent and scary, full stop, and the bigger they are, generally speaking, the scarier and more violent they are. To anthropomorphize: big waves want, desperately, to drown you. Very few people surf them, and that’s the only reason they don’t kill more people than they do.”
Some of the events took place half a century prior, so a reader might wonder how accurate some of the remembrances are. Also, most dedicated surfers are inherently selfish -- minutely focused on the ocean and its subculture -- so the author definitely comes across as a pretty shitty partner in many ways.
“Chasing waves in a dedicated way was both profoundly egocentric and selfless, dynamic and ascetic, radical in its rejection of the values of duty and conventional achievement.”
But within the tale, Finnegan touches on growing old, his role in failed relationships, the loss of his parents, and his struggles to settle. "Barbarian Days" is a beautifully written book that accepts that it's all right not to try to explain the unexplainable.
“Surfing is a secret garden, not easily entered. My memory of learning a post, of coming to know and understand a wave, is usually inseparable from the friend with whom I tried to climb its walls.”
No comments:
Post a Comment