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1-Page Summary of Barbarian Days

Overview

The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Finnegan, William. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. Penguin Random House, 2015. This memoir describes a lifetime of looking for waves and looking for himself. He divides his memoir into chapters that describe different epochs of his life and his approach to surfing at that time. The book begins in Honolulu in 1966 when Finnegan’s family moves to Hawaii for his father’s job as an executive with the Ford Foundation (a philanthropic organization). Then he describes eighth grade in Hawaii where a young Finnegan contends with local waves that stoke his obsession with surfing while also fending off bullies and developing greater independence from his parents. He then describes growing up in California starting from 1956 when he was four years old. His parents were TV and film producers who loved the ocean, so they encouraged him to devote himself to socially conscious causes like protesting nuclear testing on islands near Hawaii. He then describes being 16 years old in 1968, during which surfers were seen as outcasts even though some people thought they were cool because they lived close by their families, unlike other teens who drove cars or went away for college. In addition, one friend even dropped football team practice just so he could go surfing every day after school instead.

Finnegan then goes on to talk about his time in Hawaii. He dropped out of college and lived with a girlfriend who had an abortion, which led to their breakup. He later found another girlfriend and traveled with her friend Bryan Di Salvatore to the South Pacific where he discovered perfect waves. However, Finnegan eventually abandoned that lifestyle because he was tired of traveling without any direction or purpose. In Indonesia, Finnegan wrestled with wanting to go home but feeling like he should finish his novel first before leaving for good. After working at a black school in South Africa, Finnegan decided to write a book about apartheid instead of surfing again in Fiji as planned originally.

He then describes his years in San Francisco, when he braces cold, big waves and lives with his girlfriend Caroline (who later became his wife). He encounters a local character named Mark Renneker, who combines obsessive surfing with family medicine. Finnegan continues to surf despite being a father and practices the recklessness that has defined his approach to surfing and reporting for a long time. He spends several winters surfing in Madeira before it becomes overbuilt and the waves are destroyed. At every phase of life he is at once philosophical about surfing while still obsessed with finding the perfect wave.

Chapter 1

In this chapter, Chapter 1: Off Diamond Head: Honolulu, 1966-1967, Finnegan recounts his move to Honolulu from southern California when he was in 8th grade. At Kaimuki Intermediate School (his school), as a “haole” (or white person), he was considered an outsider. He writes that he was unaware at the time of the many ethnic groups in the school, which included Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Samoan, Filipino and Portuguese students. Finnegan recalls being targeted by a large kid named Freitas who spoke pidgin English with him during shop class while their teacher wasn’t looking. When Finnegan’s parents sent him to Hawaii they probably thought it would be similar to his previous school experience in California but it turns out that Hawaii schools are very different than those on the mainland United States; therefore his parents were under a misconception when they sent him there for middle school education. The Hawaiian elementary schools where his younger siblings–Kevin (age 9) and Colleen (age 7)–attended were good but there weren’t any middle schools so most families sent their children to private middle schools instead of public ones like what happened with Finnegan who spent much of his time fighting at Kaimuki engaged in fights along with loneliness and racial awareness because prior to moving to Hawaii he’d existed in “unconscious whiteness.” His classes were largely segregated by race as upper level classes mainly consisted of Japanese girls since haoles such as himself took lower level courses taught by mostly Asian teachers except for Spanish class which had one Caucasian student besides himself whom he befriended after realizing how much they disliked their Hispanic teacher Mr Rodriguez who also taught them English grammar & composition & creative writing—all three subjects that I hated too!