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Barbarian Days cover art

Barbarian Days

Written by: William Finnegan
Narrated by: William Finnegan
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Publisher's Summary

Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 2016

A deeply rendered self-portrait of a lifelong surfer by the acclaimed New Yorker writer.

Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.

Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter.

Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses - off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the listener in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships annealed in challenging waves. Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu even while his closest friend was a Hawaiian surfer. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly - he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay on Maui - is served up with rueful humor. He and a buddy, their knapsacks crammed with reef charts, bushwhack through Polynesia. They discover, while camping on an uninhabited island in Fiji, one of the world's greatest waves.

As Finnegan's travels take him ever farther afield, he becomes an improbable anthropologist: unpicking the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissecting the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, navigating the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying listeners with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity.

©2015 William Finnegan (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Gripping and poignant

I am not a surfer but absolutely loved this book. The writing is so eloquent, I felt as though I were almost experiencing the act of surfing, the ocean and the waves. I loved that he transports the reader to places they would never otherwise have access to. I loved his travels and descriptions of the various far flung surf destinations around the world - before they became popular. I felt genuinely sad upon hearing how they had been developed and overrun with tourists, even though I had never been there myself. The final chapters about his physical limitations due to age are particularly poignant and a reminder to enjoy our passions while we can.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

You need to like surfing

A lot of the comments said that you could appreciate this book without knowledge of surfing. I disagree, this book is a drag if you don’t love surfing as much as the author. The performance is not consistent and there are very obvious breaks in the narration

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1 person found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

had me, til the last hour

ok, usually, even if I don't really like a book, if I get this close to the end, I'll finish. This one had a pretty serious issue for me however. So the story was pretty good. Some interesting parts, some not so. Some redundancy, but overall, cool life story.

I love surfing, having discovered it quite by accident on a trip to Costa Rica for some dental work. I was in my thirties at the time. I grew up in southern Ontario, far from any suitable waves. I've gone back to Costa Rica three times just to surf and am slowly gathering the gear and money to pay for surfing in the colder waters near me.

According to Bill, I shouldn't be surfing at all and I'm ruining it for the serious surfers who have put in the dedication and time.

You're pretty lucky Bill. you grew up in an area where you could reach surfable waves, you had some awareness of surfing and the money to get a board. I wish I had had similar circumstances. Your parents helped and encouraged your interests and helped you pay for gear. That's true dedication. It clearly wasn't luck and privilege that allowed you the ability to surf, surf often and have boards and wetsuits and wax and patch kits and a space to keep your board and work on it. Not that at all. This was obviously grit and dedication.

I'm not saying what he did in his life isn't impressive. But don't deny others discovering a passion and love for surfing, and the ocean because your situation gave you clear advantages. Loving surfing and the ocean often leads us to care more about what happens to it, and the earth. Which is something we desperately need right now.

I'm not bitter about others circumstances, but how dare you say that people who take up surfing later in life aren't as worthy of learning and continuing to learn. You speak about wanting to do something to bring awareness to issues facing those less fortunate, you make it seem like you have some self awareness and consciousness of the inequities around the world...... and then you say something stupid like that and ruin everything.

I recommend this book, I guess, if you happen to be a dedicated surfer and not a late starter or a casual one..... we clearly are not worthy of these passages, these thoughts, these words.

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1 person found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
  • KP
  • 2019-09-19

I came in with high hopes...

Audio wise, the production was sub-par. Whoever did the sound engineering had the narrator cut in so often, small snippets of speech that did not gel with the rest of the audio. After 10 hours I got somewhat used to it, but I was surprised that an audible production was so low-quality... it sounded awkward and clumsy and unnatural.

As for the story, I’m not a surfer, but I appreciated this book. My only real critique is that it didn’t dive into the emotional depths that I need from a memoir. It felt very surface-level and focused more on description and facts. Personally, I don’t enjoy that type of writing. Also, it was entirely too long for my liking. Half the length would have been perfect for me.

Still, as a non-surfer, I found myself lost in his descriptions of waves and trips: it felt exciting at times!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

An ode to surfing

this is not a surf story
its a story about surfing

remember to live with fear
not in it

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  • Cj
  • 2022-09-23

A journalistic surf love story!

A story that delivers the experiance of being in the ocean, catching waves and the journey to finding the magic they embue. Its written with unique but digestible language and perspective. Even if you don't surf, you will feel like you have, and will want to even more. If you have surfed, you'll appreciate the aptly described experiance and the words he finds to capture the intangible aspects of a wave.
Thank you for sharing your story William🙏

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Wave chaser … a story and obsession

An eloquently told sorry of a surfer who truly loves waves. It would have been better if a professional reader was used versus the author. However, the choppiness of the edit didn’t detract from the decade’s of first hand knowledge boards and surf culture. I’d listen to it again if another edit was created,

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Great book.

As a life long surfer myself I can relate to the painful joy that surfing brings. Great book over all. A little slow at times but very interesting to hear his take on surfing,family and friends. He’s lived the life most surfers dream of.

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Like stories around a campfire

Loved this autobiography. It felt like a good friend was telling me their life stories around a campfire. Such a good listen

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Surprised How Good This Was!

I picked this up as a Daily Deal and read it on Ryan Holiday's recommendation. I know nothing about surfing but I was sucked into the story and Finnegan's life. Pick it up you will be too. Knowing nothing about surfing is probably a benefit for this book.

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