It seems a bit strange to me that I would choose to read a memoir focused on surfing. I don't read many memoirs, and I've never tried surfing, or ever really had any interest in it. I do, however, love great writing, so this book turned out to be the perfect choice. Finnegan has spent time all over the world chasing waves and working as a war journalist, and he is, unsurprisingly, an avid reader, so the book is as much a travelogue and intellectual history as it is a book about his devotion to surfing. Or, perhaps "obsession" is a better word than "devotion." Finnegan writes evocatively about the places he's traveled and the waves he's surfed, and he writes just as beautifully about surfing's undiminished attraction for him:
"A bruise-colored cloud hung over Koko Head. A transistor radio twanged on a seawall where a Hawaiian family picnicked on the sand. The sun-warmed shallow water had a strange boiled-vegetable taste. The moment was immense, still, glittering, mundane. I tried to fix each of its parts in memory. I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would."
"A bruise-colored cloud hung over Koko Head. A transistor radio twanged on a seawall where a Hawaiian family picnicked on the sand. The sun-warmed shallow water had a strange boiled-vegetable taste. The moment was immense, still, glittering, mundane. I tried to fix each of its parts in memory. I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would."
