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Some surfers are articulate. Niran recommended this book because the author was one of his mother's students.
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Caught Inside: A Surfer's Year on the California Coast
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Tossing aside a mundane and meaningless job, Daniel Duane went to Santa Cruz, California, to surf for year. The book he wrote about it, Caught Inside is something of a Walden of our times. It's wonderfully written, weaving wave wisdom with literary and historical references. And it's not for surfers only: even readers who have never seen the surf will find themselves taken up in the book's rhythms.
Duane sought the peace that surfing offers, and his impressions of surfing characters, sea life (otters, seals, and the great white shark everyone fears is right under you as you paddle your board), and the seasons by the sea are evocative and soothing to read.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1996
This edition
- Format
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256 pages, Paperback
- Published
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April 10, 1997 by North Point Press
- ISBN
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9780865475090
- ASIN
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0865475091
- Language
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English
About the author
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Daniel Duane is the author of two novels and four books of non-fiction, including the memoir Caught Inside: A Surfer's Year on the California Coast. He hosts the Sony Music podcast Reunion: Shark Attacks in Paradise, a co-production of HyperObject Industries and Little Everywhere. Duane has written journalism about everything from politics and food to rock-climbing and social justice, and for publications ranging from The New York Times Magazine to Wired, GQ, Esquire, Outside, and Bon Appetit. Duane won a 2012 National Magazine Award for an article about cooking with Chef Thomas Keller and has twice been a finalist for a James Beard Award. Duane holds a PhD in American Literature from UC Santa Cruz and has taught writing for the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, University of California Santa Cruz, and the MFA program at San Francisco State University. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the writer Elizabeth Weil, and their two daughters.
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Community Reviews
Rating(3.9 / 5.0, 73 votes)
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73 reviews All reviews
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Enjoyable read that just takes you there with him. Good read during the winter months here in Jersey where now I'm too old to brave those winter surf sessions. This book helps me make it to spring when the Atlantic is just a little warmer.
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An incredible, engaging story of becoming a member of a community and culture I hold near and dear to my being. That is of the Surfer.
An enigma to those who aren't inside this culture, yet deeply enthralling to all who observe the magic of gliding across the water.
I highly recommend to anyone who has ever wondered what it is like to be a surfer.
An enigma to those who aren't inside this culture, yet deeply enthralling to all who observe the magic of gliding across the water.
I highly recommend to anyone who has ever wondered what it is like to be a surfer.
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The timing for reading this one was eerily, and perfectly appropriate.
Loved.
Loved.
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i loved the authors writting style! it was a very descriptive style capturing all of his surroundings, both in and out of the water. although the title is misleading. the author does spend a year on the coast, but only the santa cruz area which is a very small part of the california coast. i would have loved to read his interactions on other parts of the coast.
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Interestingly, while reading this book, I thought of three other books (all of which I enjoyed immensely) that have something in common with "Caught Inside."
1. Barbarian Days: a book about surfing (specifically a man's account of his surfing life)
2. Cold Mountain: a book with copious bucolic descriptions
3. Turn of the Screw: a book with the longest sentences (and the most parentheticals) I have ever read.
When you write a book about a topic in which few people are interested, replete with pastoral descriptions in baroque language, you should have some writing chops. When you do, you write one of the aforementioned books. When you don’t, you write something like “Caught Inside.”
I get why readers like this book. I did too. The author's descriptions of the California coast and its surf is, at times, transcendent. The historical elements are affecting, the wave tutorials stimulating, and the random trivia enlightening. I especially enjoyed the character Vince, whose display of surf machismo kept me entertained the whole way through. Duane's socio-cultural analysis of surf movies "Gidget" and "Endless Summer" is brilliant.
But it is the writing that is this narrative's weakness. Duane’s prose is written stream of consciousness with endless parentheticals and misplaced modifiers. Often, I would re-read passages and still misunderstand the author's intention. Because of this, it took me months to finish the book and this is in despite glossing over many pages.
"Caught Inside" has been touted by critics as “surfing’s Walden” and I wouldn't argue with that.
But however much the premise of this book recalls Walden, the writing will remind one that Duane is not Thoreau
1. Barbarian Days: a book about surfing (specifically a man's account of his surfing life)
2. Cold Mountain: a book with copious bucolic descriptions
3. Turn of the Screw: a book with the longest sentences (and the most parentheticals) I have ever read.
When you write a book about a topic in which few people are interested, replete with pastoral descriptions in baroque language, you should have some writing chops. When you do, you write one of the aforementioned books. When you don’t, you write something like “Caught Inside.”
I get why readers like this book. I did too. The author's descriptions of the California coast and its surf is, at times, transcendent. The historical elements are affecting, the wave tutorials stimulating, and the random trivia enlightening. I especially enjoyed the character Vince, whose display of surf machismo kept me entertained the whole way through. Duane's socio-cultural analysis of surf movies "Gidget" and "Endless Summer" is brilliant.
But it is the writing that is this narrative's weakness. Duane’s prose is written stream of consciousness with endless parentheticals and misplaced modifiers. Often, I would re-read passages and still misunderstand the author's intention. Because of this, it took me months to finish the book and this is in despite glossing over many pages.
"Caught Inside" has been touted by critics as “surfing’s Walden” and I wouldn't argue with that.
But however much the premise of this book recalls Walden, the writing will remind one that Duane is not Thoreau
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In the acknowledgments the author thanks his mother for her love of language and his father for his love of story, both of which he uses copiously in this book.
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You gotta know to know, y’know? Surfing is just like that mannn
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