The Game: Part II--finally.
I did say I was going to get around to this eventually.
Right, Mystery's charms aside, The Game is not a very good book as far as literary value (or even basic writing merit) goes. The author can tell fairly entertaining anecdotes, but is out of his depth completely when it comes to shaping story structure, or dealing with any of the issues of developing a longer, interconnected narrative. Strauss' writing style seems best suited for much shorter pieces: I could see how he could write decent magazine articles, but he flounders as soon as he has to extend his ideas over a larger format.
For one, the writing is full of annoying overbuilding of expectations. Nearly every sentence builds itself up as though about to impart A Stunning Revelation, only to deliver nothing of interest in particular. Strauss does not seem to realize that in a 300-page book, you save that type of rhetorical device for key passages only, and you have to make sure that you can follow through on the expectations you build up. Instead he opens with a stumbling mess of sentences overburdened with their own importance, like:
"They called me Style. It was a name I had earned."
"It was Project Hollywood. And Project Hollywood was in shambles."
"She didn't know. How could she? But this sobbing giant with the crumpled tissue in his hands was the greatest pickup artist in the world. That was not a matter of opinion, but fact. [...]
There was only one person alive who could possibly compete with him. And that man was sitting in front of her also."
"There was only one person left to call: the woman who had triggered Mystery's downward spiral."
One of these is enough for any opening chapter--you use a device like this either at the very start or the end, and then you need to backtrack and provide context that will substantiate the grandiose tone to the reader. But instead, Strauss just continues piling on the overly dramatic phrases one on top of another, and doesn’t back them up with any further exposition. The last example is the worst case of this: certainly if you come out with a statement like that, one would expect to be given details on how exactly this woman "triggered Mystery’s downward spiral" and for whatever intervention she provides to lead up to a climax appropriate to the weight of the build-up's desperate nature. But no. All that Strauss tells us is that this was an ex girlfriend, and all he wants from her are some drugs--which she immediately delivers without any incident, and which do absolutely nothing. And then she leaves. And doesn’t reappear again for chapters and chapters. And when she does appear, the treatment given to the actions through which she supposedly "caused" the breakdown is cursory at best.
Aside from the irritation of having everything written in this overhyped and anticlimactic style, Strauss has an absolute disregard of what is actually useful to the narrative and interesting to an audience, and what is extraneous and of note only to his ego. Thus, we get a bizarre interjection where he shares with us that he is (as he is writing) having sex with some girl, accompanied by a totally unnecessary blow-by-blow description. We also get several chapters in the middle of the book where he leaves Mystery and the other pick up artists (ie, the entire supposed interest and motivation for writing the damn thing) and instead tells us about how he hung out with Courtney Love and interviewed Britney Spears. The Britney Spears interview is actually relevant to using the game, but the Courtney Love interlude serves no purpose at all except to brag that hey, he befriends rock stars! Courtney does eventually reappear in the narrative, but manages to remain almost entirely incidental to the story-as-a-story anyway.
A slightly less egotistical digression comes when Strauss writes about briefly falling for a girl he ran game on, dating her for a little while, and then their separation. The entire "relationship" lasts only a couple of weeks, and even though she's one of the few girls he got actually emotionally invested in, this abortive fling serves no serves no purpose for the overall book, and should have been cut by any minimally competent editor.
Thus I can't say the book was exceptionally engrossing, and honestly it wasn't even particularly informative. All the "game" information in here is easily available on various seduction community messageboards, or even by watching Vh1's "The Pickup Artist." Strauss' observations and commentary are mostly embarrassingly obvious, and sometimes not even accurate (despite what he likes to think). Most of the interesting stuff comes from rehashing what Mystery told him, and is better said by Mystery, Juggler, or other pick up artists elsewhere. Moreover, I don't even think Strauss sells it that well. Most of the characters peopling this book come off somewhat dense, and it makes one think that maybe the game wouldn't work on people who are smarter than that, or people who are wise to the tricks presented. But that's the fault of Strauss' examples and material, not the game itself. In fact part of the brilliance of the game is that when done properly, not only should it work on almost anyone, but it should work even if you know that you are being run game on.
That said, I know most people would be too lazy to actually go trawling through post archives on messageboards, and not too keen on having to piece together the various pieces of game theory by themselves (as that approach to learning the game would require). I happen to think that's the best way to go about it, as then you can also get various people's perspectives, and pick and choose which techniques would yield you results and which you'd rather pass on. If you don't have time for all that though, I suppose the book can provide a decent and somewhat entertaining introduction for the curious as to what this whole pick-up and game thing is about. I found that most of what I found entertaining was accidental, but your mileage may vary.
Now this entry has gotten too long as well, so I'll save the rest for a final post in this trilogy: Part III: What IS The Game, Anyway?
Right, Mystery's charms aside, The Game is not a very good book as far as literary value (or even basic writing merit) goes. The author can tell fairly entertaining anecdotes, but is out of his depth completely when it comes to shaping story structure, or dealing with any of the issues of developing a longer, interconnected narrative. Strauss' writing style seems best suited for much shorter pieces: I could see how he could write decent magazine articles, but he flounders as soon as he has to extend his ideas over a larger format.
For one, the writing is full of annoying overbuilding of expectations. Nearly every sentence builds itself up as though about to impart A Stunning Revelation, only to deliver nothing of interest in particular. Strauss does not seem to realize that in a 300-page book, you save that type of rhetorical device for key passages only, and you have to make sure that you can follow through on the expectations you build up. Instead he opens with a stumbling mess of sentences overburdened with their own importance, like:
"They called me Style. It was a name I had earned."
"It was Project Hollywood. And Project Hollywood was in shambles."
"She didn't know. How could she? But this sobbing giant with the crumpled tissue in his hands was the greatest pickup artist in the world. That was not a matter of opinion, but fact. [...]
There was only one person alive who could possibly compete with him. And that man was sitting in front of her also."
"There was only one person left to call: the woman who had triggered Mystery's downward spiral."
One of these is enough for any opening chapter--you use a device like this either at the very start or the end, and then you need to backtrack and provide context that will substantiate the grandiose tone to the reader. But instead, Strauss just continues piling on the overly dramatic phrases one on top of another, and doesn’t back them up with any further exposition. The last example is the worst case of this: certainly if you come out with a statement like that, one would expect to be given details on how exactly this woman "triggered Mystery’s downward spiral" and for whatever intervention she provides to lead up to a climax appropriate to the weight of the build-up's desperate nature. But no. All that Strauss tells us is that this was an ex girlfriend, and all he wants from her are some drugs--which she immediately delivers without any incident, and which do absolutely nothing. And then she leaves. And doesn’t reappear again for chapters and chapters. And when she does appear, the treatment given to the actions through which she supposedly "caused" the breakdown is cursory at best.
Aside from the irritation of having everything written in this overhyped and anticlimactic style, Strauss has an absolute disregard of what is actually useful to the narrative and interesting to an audience, and what is extraneous and of note only to his ego. Thus, we get a bizarre interjection where he shares with us that he is (as he is writing) having sex with some girl, accompanied by a totally unnecessary blow-by-blow description. We also get several chapters in the middle of the book where he leaves Mystery and the other pick up artists (ie, the entire supposed interest and motivation for writing the damn thing) and instead tells us about how he hung out with Courtney Love and interviewed Britney Spears. The Britney Spears interview is actually relevant to using the game, but the Courtney Love interlude serves no purpose at all except to brag that hey, he befriends rock stars! Courtney does eventually reappear in the narrative, but manages to remain almost entirely incidental to the story-as-a-story anyway.
A slightly less egotistical digression comes when Strauss writes about briefly falling for a girl he ran game on, dating her for a little while, and then their separation. The entire "relationship" lasts only a couple of weeks, and even though she's one of the few girls he got actually emotionally invested in, this abortive fling serves no serves no purpose for the overall book, and should have been cut by any minimally competent editor.
Thus I can't say the book was exceptionally engrossing, and honestly it wasn't even particularly informative. All the "game" information in here is easily available on various seduction community messageboards, or even by watching Vh1's "The Pickup Artist." Strauss' observations and commentary are mostly embarrassingly obvious, and sometimes not even accurate (despite what he likes to think). Most of the interesting stuff comes from rehashing what Mystery told him, and is better said by Mystery, Juggler, or other pick up artists elsewhere. Moreover, I don't even think Strauss sells it that well. Most of the characters peopling this book come off somewhat dense, and it makes one think that maybe the game wouldn't work on people who are smarter than that, or people who are wise to the tricks presented. But that's the fault of Strauss' examples and material, not the game itself. In fact part of the brilliance of the game is that when done properly, not only should it work on almost anyone, but it should work even if you know that you are being run game on.
That said, I know most people would be too lazy to actually go trawling through post archives on messageboards, and not too keen on having to piece together the various pieces of game theory by themselves (as that approach to learning the game would require). I happen to think that's the best way to go about it, as then you can also get various people's perspectives, and pick and choose which techniques would yield you results and which you'd rather pass on. If you don't have time for all that though, I suppose the book can provide a decent and somewhat entertaining introduction for the curious as to what this whole pick-up and game thing is about. I found that most of what I found entertaining was accidental, but your mileage may vary.
Now this entry has gotten too long as well, so I'll save the rest for a final post in this trilogy: Part III: What IS The Game, Anyway?