A Life of Wild Waves
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers who like surfing, the ocean and adventure
- Those interested in 1960s American culture and social change
- Readers who prefer personal-growth memoir and literary memoir
- Those who want to feel freedom and fear intertwined in reading
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting a complete surfing technique guide
- People who dislike depictions of LSD and hippie culture
- Readers who prefer linear, stable narrative
Reading tips
- Don't worry about surfing terminology; focus on bodily sensation and the atmosphere of the era.
- Follow the protagonist's psychological changes through three stages: boyhood, Hawaii, and the surfing circle.
- Slow down when reading wave descriptions and appreciate how the author captures fear in literary language.
- Read alongside 1960s music or historical materials to understand how social upheaval shaped personal choices.
About the publisher
Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 一 钻石头 火奴鲁鲁：1966—1967
- 二 海洋的气息 加州：1956—1965
- 三 新的冲击 加州：1968
- 四 我偏要亲吻天空 毛伊岛：1971
- 五 寻浪 南太平洋：1978
- 六 幸运的国度 澳大利亚：1978—1979
- 七 选择埃塞俄比亚 亚洲，非洲：1979—1981
- 八 拒绝边缘化 旧金山：1983—1986
- 九 深沉的男低音 马德拉群岛：1994—2003
- 十 当群山坠入大海的心中 纽约：2002—2015
FAQ
Can I read this book without knowing how to surf?
Is this book mainly about surfing or about growing up?
Is the historical background hard to understand?
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About the author
William Finnegan is an American writer born in 1952 and a longtime contributor to The New Yorker. He is the author of a surfing memoir, Barbarian Days, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. The book draws on his many years of surfing experience, interweaving personal growth with close observation of waves and the ocean environment, and displays a distinctive documentary style and literary quality. Public information about his life is limited; his writing centers mainly on surfing culture, travel, and personal experience. In Chinese book classification, his work is often placed under foreign literature, and readers generally come to know his narrative style and observational perspective through Barbarian Days.
Yi Siting is an author about whom limited public information is available. Two works bearing this Chinese byline can currently be confirmed: The Road to Happiness and A Life of Wild Waves. Classified respectively as philosophical reading and foreign literature, the two books suggest that the author's interests span reflective, idea-driven subjects and literary narrative, rather than being confined to a single field. The title The Road to Happiness implies an exploration of the meaning of life and conceptions of happiness, while A Life of Wild Waves comes closer to a personal or exotic narrative text, creating a certain contrast between the two in subject and tone. Because no reliable records exist for basic details such as dates of birth and death, nationality, or educational background, the author's personal history and the specific course of a writing career cannot be outlined, nor can it be determined whether other works exist. Judging from the two available titles, Yi Siting's writing tends to announce its themes directly in the title and to address general readers, making it of interest to those who follow philosophical essays and foreign literary translation or writing.
