Penetrating Neil Strauss: a Review by Isaac Blume

Any time a secret society suddenly becomes un-secret - or is, more aptly, penetrated - there is always a mixed reaction to a world that is in equal parts intriguing and pathetic. The society of pick-up artists revealed by Neil Strauss' The Game is no different. It is a world in which AFCs (Average Frustrated Chumps) work for IOIs (Indicators Of Interest) while neutralizing AMOGs (the Alpha Male Of the Group). But buried among the acronyms and exploits of the pick-up community are some valuable insights.

These days, any best-selling novel needs to have three main qualities: 1) compelling characters, 2) a gripping plotline, and 3) the ability to be instantly transformed into a Hollywood film. The Game satisfies all three. What's more, because it's a work of non-fiction, it has that same grotesque allure of a reality TV show.

As for compelling characters, who could forget the obscene yet somehow endearing “field report” filed by Extramask, the fledgling pick-up artist, following his very first sexual experience? In it, he records his disillusionment in lurid detail, at one point realizing that he was “getting no feeling” and “just pumping away like a tool” (71).

As for a gripping plotline, the book details the experience of Strauss as he immerses himself in a full-time community of pick-up artists ultimately to find he has become not only one of them, but the best of them - reinvented as “Style.” It deftly begins with the Project Hollywood mansion, the collective headquarters of the L.A. pick-up artists, in shambles, its tenants either crying or hiding or picking up the pieces - forcing the reader to ask, “How did it all come to this?” And read on.

The ascent, descent, and ultimate realization of Style is also well-presented and well-paced. Indeed, after turning his back on the community and committing himself to his rock star girlfriend, our hero concludes with the realization that “[b]eing together has required a lot more time and work than learning to pick up women ever did, but it has brought me far more satisfaction and joy. Perhaps that's because it's not a game” (452).

(And as for film-fodder, one reviewer has already pegged Jack Black and Kate Hudson for the leading roles).

There are a few common criticisms of the book, but none that are all too convincing. For example, it has been said that it promotes a twisted subculture, one that will prey upon confused, adolescent males. This is kind of like how playing violent video games will turn us into serial killers, or how in the 1950s rock and roll music made everyone devil-worshippers. Sure, there will be a few to get so seduced by the idea of a full-blown seduction community that they'll sell their nice-guy souls. But let's give the rest of them a bit more credit.

In addition, it has been said (by some women readers) that the book “makes women the enemy.” It doesn't. It's far too intelligent and self-conscious of a work to victimize an entire gender - no less the one it is at great pains to understand. If anything, it is all too revealing of the fragile and desperate and pitiful male ego.

If you appreciate a deft literary hand that can mix the perfect cocktail of tragic and comic and let you knock back a damn good story, you will appreciate this book. And if you prefer “true stories,” you're also in luck.

But perhaps what makes it a truly accomplished work is the fact that while it will inevitably be adopted as a textbook for armies of under-sexed males, it still carries a certain wisdom with regard to social dynamics in general.

For example, upon realizing that women will tolerate his 'occupation' of pick-up artist and the community that supports him, but not for very long, Style finds that:

“All the techniques that are so effective in beginning a relationship violate every principle necessary to maintaining one” (242).

It's a compelling statement regarding close encounters of the male-female kind. When it comes to relationships, making them is a much different story to maintaining them, which might be an art form that is much more difficult to quantify and catalogue.

About The Author

Isaac Blume (aka the Bald Skeptic) is a social critic and relationships columnist who contributes regularly to the 000Relationships Network. For more artcles on The Game, and attraction in general, see: http://www.000relationships.com/towomen/articles.php