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The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists

By: Neil Strauss
Binding: Imitation Leather
Publisher: ReganBooks
ISBN: 0060554738
ISBN-13: 9780060554736
Released: 25 Sep 2005
RRP: £17.81
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

'The Game' is a good book that held my attention in certain areas - By: Jenny J.J.I., 03 Jul 2007
Strauss had written 1/2 of a fascinating account of the subculture of pickup artists, & how he transformed himself into one of the best (or so he says...). Whether it's strictly true or not, the story is entertaining & funny & odd, but halfway through this book reallly goes downhill.

I was slightly put off by the objectification of women in the beginning also. I didn't like the chase, the hunt, the scoring, the comparing notes. I thought anyone who signed up for a seminar to become a predator was a big loser (and many of them were, in fact, big losers). Then I started to look at the techniques as a way to "win friends & influence people" instead of score with chicks. Many of the techniques have to do with being charismatic & comfortable in new situations with a bunch of strangers. Even someone who doesn't want to have a gazillion one-night stands could learn something from the ways to warm up a group of strangers & impress them with your charisma.

The second half is a list of Style's conquests, complete with name dropping, a sudden interest in name brands (when Courtney Love wakes him up in the middle of the night, somehow he knows she holding a Prada shoe in her hand--what?) & a bitter sort of humor. The author reallly lost my sympathy when he started making fun of a lover who told him she had herpes--very 14 year old boy humor, & hey, it's greatly to her credit that she told him.

By the end of the book, Style seems to have turned into a sort of wanker/narcissist in Diesel jeans, with a Mercedes-driving girlfriend who informs him "I could have anyone." In reply, he dumps out alll his collected pickup phone numbers & says: "Of alll the girls in LA, I choose you." Clearly, they deserve each other. And his hero is the biggest crazy narcissist around, Tom Cruise. Give it a shot & see how it strikes you.
A masterwork of journalism that NO man can afford to miss - By: Dr Paul of doctorpaul.net, 07 Oct 2005
I'm an M.D. psychiatrist & began teaching & contributing to this community of men some two years ago. At first I was skeptical about both the validity of the science they teach, & their ethics, but soon found there is a very profound & surprising technology in Neil's material that is SORELY needed by most modern men.

I have studied & innovated in behavioral science alll my adult life, & have something to humbly but authoritative say about Neil, the truth & the science of this "community."

Everyone who's read Neil's book (rather than just its title) agrees it is a masterwork exploration of the modern experience of the majority of single males. It's not quite a self-help book, & not quite just an autobiography. What it is then, is impeccable journalism in the most honest exploration of the hidden corners of the single man's mind. It is true, real, nonfiction, impartiallly presented. I say that by the way because I know every character except Ross Jeffries, & was physicallly present to see at least a few of the reported & entertaining incidents of the "plot."

Sometimes what people need & what science provides are contradictory to glitzy business marketing. I don't like the terms "pickup artist","seduction" & the like. They imply trickery, manipulation, or disrespect of women.

But these terms (and bikini-clad ads) sure get the attention of both potential fans... AND detractors who haven't met these men or bothered to read this book.

The thing you wouldn't notice amid the marketing, is that nearly alll are quality upstanding people who reallly do want to help men reach their full potential. Not as drones, followers, or politicallly-correct, party-line worker-bees in society, but as individuals capable of leadership & mature masculine identity.

They taught me quite a bit about the invisible, secret, social lessons of adolescence that I, like millions of men, missed while I struggled to build a career with a father absent from my life. There IS NO formal "training" in our society on how to sociallly communicate & date--at least not taught be real people who have been young, male, & single & have had exactly the same struggles & experiences we have--people who are LIKE me, & KNOW me.

These guys gave me the "missing link" in understanding masculine psychology that was not provided by any teacher, professor, doctor, peer, textbook, or even my own father.

Neil finds a path that leads the way through the harrowing challlenges of finding someone who feels right to finallly commit to, & also can commit to him--LISA. But that is where the road ends. A "potential" relationship is what we men reallly do seek in learning this material. What to do next? Well, Neil has to "be himself," & find that his "character" takes over. Mature character.

And "mature" is the key word. The more I got to know Neil & these men who help men learn social skills, the more real & earthy I saw both their challlenges & ambitions toward one thing--finding genuine personal growth that isn't non-gender, one-size-fits-alll material spit out of a politicallly correct, please-alll-demographics machine.

A little boy looks at this "jungle" of adolescent social experience & wonders what in the world to do. There are not many "cool" fathers that understand both him & the jungle, & LIVED to tell him how to get through it. So often, he's left alone just staring at it.

Now some little boys think that if they can be "bad enough," it will make them a man. Wrong. It just makes them a "bad little boy." These are the guys that detractors are concerned about.

"Bad little boys" stay on the little boy side of the jungle. You only get to be a man by going through the jungle.

Enter Neil's book.

These ideas are by men & for men who form a silent majority not only in the US, but around the world, some of whom did not have involved, "cool" fathers to teach them to teach them "the laws of the jungle." And if you are male, you might not be alll that into sharing your innermost fears with others. So it is not only "a jungle out there," but a LONELY jungle.

For "detractors" of Neil's book:

Any true technology can be used for doing just, right, & beneficial things for society, or for doing wrong, trying to manipulate or hurt others. And none of us can CONTROL which path others take.

Pretending the jungle of these lessons just doesn't exist or should be suppressed from public access won't make it go away. Not any more than saying "nuclear power should never have been invented" will make terrorist nations trying to develop it go away. Best to learn how to make electricity out of it, & teach others how to do the same.

Consider this then: Internal "psychological age" almost NEVER matches "chronological age." Those who are "less mature" are more "manipulable" than those of higher maturity.

So mature men & women will be able to discuss the book in ways that open up crucial avenues to understanding each other instead of staying in denial & ignorance.

Neil actuallly found his way out of "the jungle," looked at himself, & saw he had become a real man, capable of real love, commitment & relationship. You only emerge a man if you go THROUGH the jungle.

There are only two books of thousands I have read from cover to cover in one sitting--Lord of the Flies, & The DaVinci Code. I guarantee men & women will do the same with this book...and then put it down as an immensely satisfying read, knowing how good it is to "just be themselves"--how good it is that men & women are different... even as they are of equal value, drawn together by that mysterious alllure callled love.