I bought a book by Neil Strauss as a present to my twenty-something relative. I cannot claim much experience in this department—but the advice, which I got from “natural” PUAs in my late twenties-early thirties—albeit, too late for me to use it, suggests that the material in his book is sound. Furthermore, it is a novel, a work of fiction and should not be viewed as completely documentary.
Neil Strauss has been labeled a misogynist, a fraud and a bevy of other names. My problem with his narrative is more literary and philosophical. Let me first refer to another, much more famous work of fiction, namely Casanova’s “memoirs.” Namely, what I read there, rarely qualifies as seduction. This is a story of a wealthy gentleman (fake, in Casanova’s case) who simply procured underage girls for money or the glitter of it. This had been a little problem in 18th Century Europe with its agrarian overpopulation, incessant wars and beginning urbanization. Mothers and fathers peddled their surplus daughters to rich travelers as a way to assure some semblance of prosperity for other members of their family or simply to stave hunger.
When I read “The Secret Society of Pickup Artists”, I had the same feeling, especially because I remembered PTA’s “Magnolia” loosely based on some characters in his book and because looked up him being educated in Vassar College on Wikipedia. I would not be surprised if he came from the stock of banker and diplomat Lewis Strauss, who headed Atomic Energy Commission in its golden years and stripped Oppenheimer of his security clearance, or any other illustrious Strauss.
O’K registered I, he describes the case of the fraternity of upper-middle class Hollywood guys—syndicated columnists, screenwriters, etc.―preying on poor and vulnerable trailer trash girls (a.k.a. strippers and centerfolds) and maladjusted Eastern European exports. Boring, and old as the world itself. But he is a decent writer.
