Customer Reviews

Caught Inside: A Surfer's Year on the California Coast

5 star:		(40)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This is a terrific book. The reviewers who complained about the history and the overly- descriptive prose are really just reflecting the mind-set they brought to the book, because he does both of those well. I mean, that's the book he set out to write. Also, there is not a story here - rather it is a collection of essays, like that from a journal. Approach this for what it is: a bang-on personal report about what it's like to live a surfer's life revolving around the beach, wind, swells and tides. It's extremely accurate.

I can't swim, not really anyway. I can doggy paddle, I can float for a little while, I can even go from one side of a pool to the other if I have to (width not length). But after a couple minutes in the water I start to feel this weight on my chest, like the pressure of the entire ocean is pushing on me. Out of breath, I panic and realize the enormity of what surrounds me, the depth beneath me and the power that moves me. Reading Daniel Duane's "Caught Inside: A Surfer's Year on the California Coast" made me feel that way too, minus the panic. Mixing equal parts memoir, trail guide and history lesson Duane concocts a recipe that might not be for everyone and yet for those who have a taste for such things, what he has written will leave you changed. It's about surfing but it's really about being alive and noticing the world around you. It's about understanding the world as both science and art. It's about leaving home and finding something more.

If you're looking for cover to cover eloquence in prose it isn't here. If you're looking for a pure surf story it isn't here either. I think that what we have in this book is an honest reflection of a year from a guy that's read some books and seen some movies, a guy who can think about masturbating and physics and pop culture and relationships. The book is full of quietly poignant moments about things like tide pools or teenagers staring at a bottle of beer and if that makes Duane a "wanker" like one fellow Amazon reviewer suggested, I think we should all strive to be wankers too.

Anyway, it's been 5 years since I read this book last and yet I find myself thinking about it even now. As one person said to the author about the setting of the sun, it's just not the kind of thing you can look at once and say, "huh, I get it."

I was eager to read tis book when I got it as a gift, but found it to be hard to read more than a few pages at a time. The author uses so many references to other works that I felt I should have read them instead. Also he seems to get lost in very wordy discription of quite trivial things that have little to do with the story, which by the way was very weak at best.

I had just finished weisbckers In Search of Captain Zero, and he spoke of this book in it, so I figured Id give it a read. It was a wise decision, and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Duane plays the whole escapist card in a different fashion then Weisbecker, resulting in an interesting tale of his travels. I didnt really see a general overlying story to the book, but rather duane's anecdotes of his days spend surfing and living did reflect on the whole natural world theme. If anyone in your family doestn surf, I feel like if they read this work, they may better undersatnd the surfer perspective and why we do the thigns we do. Overall well versed book that is worth the price and time to read it.

Daniel Duane succeeds at many moments in this book at expressing what every surfer who wasn't born on a board and isn't quite yet a pot-bellied longboarder thinks and feels on a daily basis. There are times when Duane manages to sum up a whole month's worth of solutions to surfing problems in a single sentence. He nailed the difficulty of explaining surfing to non-surfers, the hard to accept but obvious reason why the most crowded breaks are so crowded (perfect waves), the heartbreaking inconsistency of the ocean, and the way a surfer finds it difficult to think of anything else. The only problem is Duane chose an impossible task. He seemed at times to be filling pages with the thoughts a mind generates sitting on a board during a long lull or sitting around your house waiting for swell. While an important part of the life, those tend to be boring times, and not always worth reading about. The history lessons and wildlife observations are interesting and occaisionally poetic, but cannot mask the truth. All surfers try to keep conversations about surfing alive with the peripheral elements to interest non-surfers. It doesn't work though, because each surfer, no matter what their attitude, knows in his/her heart there is a single meaning to why they surf; the feeling of riding a great wave. Everything else is just a means to get there as comfortably and nobly as possible. I'm sorry Daniel, try as we might, they'll never understand. Caught Inside is a valiant effort full of inspiration. Unfortunatelty it can't quite bridge the gap between surfing's reality and that of the rest of the world. The Philadelphia Enquirer says the book, "Looms on the horizon like a hurricane in a summer without waves." What else needs to be said ? They just don't get it. Maybe they're not meant to.

While reading Daniel Duane's book I said to myself quite frequently, "That is exactly how I feel about surfing." The author writes about the entire surfing experience, including what it feels like to get barreled, the fear of sharks, board selection, surf flicks, and so on. His writing is very descriptive -- at times may be a little bit too descriptive -- but it does paint a good picture of the environment. Overall, I was very pleased with the book.

To sit in freezing water with even colder air temperatures for hours waiting for a good wave is an exercise in discipline, although a lot of people would say that discipline is precisely what the quintessential surfer lacks. Author Dan Duane exhibits discipline and several other honorable traits in "Caught Inside," his thoughtful memoir of a year spent following a dream and accomplishing a goal. While some may scoff at what can be called the "surfer mentality," Duane goes deep beneath the surface and dredges up a lot of emotion and introspective philosophical sentiments about why he surfs (and why he does anything worth doing). Duane is well-read, intelligent and expressive, and the book is interesting, beautifully written and thought provoking. I would imagine that Duane's musings would be valuable, meaningful and applicable even to those who have never even seen the ocean, much less ridden a wave.

PS to reviewer Christopher Seal - women surf too!

I am not a surfer, I probably never will be a surfer. But this book captured me, not because it's about surfing, but because it's about one person's attempt to feel, experience, and then communicate his total communion with a rare piece of our Earth --- the Pacific Coast of California where the waves wash up on the Point. It's nature writing at its most profound....an attempt to take one little piece of the globe and get across what it's all about. I read this, wierdly enough, while camping at Tahoe, and it transformed my whole camping experience,as I tried to appreciate and then replicate the detailed beauty of view Duane brought to the Santa Cruz coast up in the mountains I was wandering, and then tried to feel hiking/tramping/backpacking the way he obviously feels surfing. Read it to appreciate surfing, to learn the ocean,to feel a piece of real peace. Sweet stuff!

I'm a surfer. At least I call myself a surfer.
But I started late - taking it up not long after turning 30.
Before this, I did (and still do) many other things.
I have to admit, that passing this book onto surfer friends has brought me to the conclusion that this book is not really for your typical surfer.
Don't get me wrong - I love this book. Duane's writing is brilliant - literary, wistful, romantic, imaginative - excellent.
But, and not to put too fine a point on it - many surfers are not your literate types. This is not to denigrate or look down on them. It just isn't their style.
It is mine. Maybe that's why I'm destined to be a bit of a hack on the waves.

Overall, this is a worthwhile read for surfing enthusiasts, but it is around a third too long. Active surfers and fans of surfing will likely find the "naturalist passages" insufferable after a time. Had Duane included one more description of a field of vegetation, I would have set the book on fire. When Duane is talking surfing, the book is an engaging read. When Duane is pretending he is Thoreau, the book is a big yawn. At one point Duane describes the appeal of Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer. He notes that the film shuns "mystical overtones of truth-seeking" and instead embodies a "fifties hedonism of wholesome, laid-back fun." Too often, Duane does just the opposite. For me, the appeal of surfing is the speed, the grace, the athleticism, the danger. What has no appeal for me is a wanker sitting on his board looking at grass for two hours.