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

by Daniel Duane (Author) "Unless you're a strolling naturalist by nature, or a farmer or commercial fisherman or ranger, you need a medium, a game, a pleasure principle that..." (more)
Key Phrases: shore break, been surfing, marsh hawk, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
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 It's wonderfully written, weaving wave wisdom with literary and historical references.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.

From Publishers Weekly
Surfing enthusiast Duane quit his unfulfilling retail job in Berkeley, Calif., and moved to Santa Cruz, where he spent the better part of a recent year riding waves, exploring the coastline, researching the history of surfing and befriending and philosophizing with various locals who have arranged their lives around the quest for the perfect wave. The results of these pursuits are recorded here in quietly meditative prose that simultaneously deglamorizes the sport and seeks to imbue it with a kind of metaphysical profundity. Dedicated surfers, Duane discovers, tend to feel a measure of guilt about their willingness to give their favorite pastime precedence over career ambitions and family responsibilities. At the same time, surfing yields unique and valuable opportunities for appreciation of and communication with nature. Duane is clearly anxious to justify an ostensibly hedonistic lifestyle, and his arguments on its behalf are not always convincing, but the deftly rendered observations and epiphanies make his own experience seem decidedly worthwhile.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (April 10, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865475091
• ISBN-13: 978-0865475090
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #84,598 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Caught Inside for too Long, November 8, 2004

By	Gavin Austin "Gavin" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Daniel Duane's Caught Inside: A Surfer's Year on the California Coast wonderfully unifies the genres of memoir, travelogue, and nature writing through an infectious tone of optimism. Unfortunately, the reader's optimism may wane due to repetitious descriptions and the lack of a central action, which could have pushed the book forward.

That said, everyone should read the first one hundred pages of Caught Inside. Duane's wonder at the beauty of California's Coast is contagious. He magically describes mountains and mustard fields in a way that is deeply engaging, as if you are surrounded by them yourself. Not since John Steinbeck has an author captured the sense of awe one feels looking at the Pacific Ocean crashing against the base of the Santa Lucia Mountains. However, this goes on and on. Maybe there are only so many ways to describe the ocean and how surfers drop in on waves. Yet the monotony is intermittent. When Duane explains the history of surfing or introduces one of the characters he surfs with, the book picks up steam.

With Caught Inside, it's just a matter of how long you can wait until you get to the next engaging paragraph. Kind of like surfing. There's only so many waves you can catch in between sets.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some of the best ocean writing ever, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for surfers, in fact, probably not for surfers, February 26, 2004

By	Chad Bartlett (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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."