by Matthew Jaffe, Sunset senior writer

“My whole life is this escape, my whole life is this wave I drop into...”
--Miki Dora

These are good days for anyone interested in the world of surfing beyond the brand names and fashions. Just this weekend, the documentary Bustin’ Down The Door opened, a look at the Australian and South African surfers who invaded Oahu’s North Shore in the mid-70s.

Last week I wrote about David Rensin’s new book All for a Few Perfect Waves: The Audacious Life and Legend of Rebel Surfer Miki Dora, the definitive biography of the definitive surfer.

I met Rensin for breakfast recently at CiCi’s Café in Tarzana, on the other side of the Santa Monica Mountains from Malibu and Dora’s sacred Surfrider Beach, and across the San Fernando Valley from Granada Hills, where Rensin and his family settled after moving from New Jersey in 1964. “Everybody on my block had a surfboard,” he said. “I got my first one for $25. Probably a stolen board.”

We talked about Dora and surfing and why the fascination and “Dora Lives” graffiti endure six years since his death and nearly 60 years after he first rode the waves at Malibu.

One point Rensin makes in the book is that surfing is by definition ephemeral—a wave rolls toward shore, breaks, and is gone forever. And Dora existed in a pre-ESPN world, pre-internet world. Forget the 1080 high def: Type in “Miki Dora” on YouTube, and you’ll see only grainy glimpses of his unmistakable style, whether it’s riding at Malibu or slaloming between the pylons at Pacific Ocean Park in Santa Monica.

But no matter the resolution, Dora's joy  is still tangible. “Dora was addicted to the sensation, and at peace on the water. He was so relaxed and put all the little pieces together and made surfing look easy,” says Rensin. “And everyone wants it to be easy.”

Life outside the water wasn’t nearly as simple. Dora traveled the world— Biarritz, South Africa’s Jeffreys Bay, New Zealand and Chile were all stops along the way—looking not only for those perfect waves but seemingly the purity that once existed in Malibu.

“The individual is being pushed out and the clones are taking over,” he said.

At one point in All for a Few Perfect Waves, Rensin quotes this adage from the John Ford movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Reading about Dora, I’m also reminded of a quote that actor James Stewart said about the legend that was Ford.

“Take everything, you’ve heard, everything you’ve ever heard…and multiply it about a hundred times—and you still won’t have a picture of John Ford.”

That goes for Dora too. The waves may have been perfect but he certainly wasn’t. And maybe that’s where the fascination lies. Or as Rensin put it, “Saints are boring, aren’t they?”

Well, there aren’t many saints in surfing, which is one reason that there’s so much good writing about it. Here are some of Rensin’s recommendations, broken down into categories. Have any favorites of your own? Just let us know:

MEMOIRS AND BIOGRAPHIES
Stuart Holmes Coleman
Eddie Would Go
The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero

Daniel Duane
Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast

Jeff Hakman and Phil Jarratt
Mr. Sunset, the Jeff Hakman Story

Greg Noll and Andrea Gabbard
Da Bull, Life Over the Edge

Allan Weisbecker
In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road

NOVELS
Fred Reiss
Gidget Must Die

Kem Nunn
Tapping The Source
The Dogs of Winter

REFERENCE AND ANTHOLOGIES
Bill Cleary and David H. Stern
Surfing Guide To Southern California

Matt Warshaw
The Encyclopedia of Surfing
Zero Break: An Illustrated Collection of Surf Writing: 1777-2004

Drew Kampion
Stoked! A History of Surf Culture