Michael Blowhard once challenged CH and readers to look at what the great writers in the Western literary tradition had to say about courtship. Many responded.
Alas, it is not God’s plenty. A man who relies on literature for his models can easily get swept away by the glorious pedestalizing.
Ovid’s seduction manual, The Art of Love, is pretty uneven in its advice. Stendhal’s On Love is pretty good. Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier is a good manual for how to be an overall attractive man. (Both were used to good effect by Robert Greene in The Art of Seduction.) Moliere shows what not to do in The Misanthrope, as does Flaubert in Madame Bovary. Byron has some scattered good thoughts. Burke, from a more traditionalist perspective, has some profound thoughts on masculinity and femininity. I’ve never read Casanova’s memoirs so I cannot tell you how good they are as literature or as pickup advice. I haven’t read Laclos’ Dangerous Liasons either. It’s been a long, long time since I read Richardson’s Clarissa, with its famous seducer Lovelace. Freud expounds nicely on female narcissism.
I’d also throw in How to be the Jerk Women Love by F.J. Shark (truly a great classic in the annals of lit-ra-choor), Nine and a Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill, and Story of O by Pauline Reage. Even pulp romance novels, however hackish, can be helpful to your learned pursuit of utterly dominating a woman’s will and heart. As with the last two book recommendations, female authors will invariably reveal their pulsing erotic ids through their characters. The trick to reading romantic literature written by a woman is to pay attention to what TURNS ON the female character. Not what the character claims to want in a hypothetical boyfriend or husband, but what she specifically describes that got her tingling like a Van de Graaff generator. Editorial commentary can be ignored, because the prerequisite for becoming any woman’s ideal lover is to first become her actual lover.
You can also try reading the owner’s manual for women: The Bible. Lots of game in that book. Women loving killers, descriptions of men women want, etc. 2 Samuel reads like a mafia novel.
Ya know, the Calvinist theologian Matt Slick wrote a little ditty while in seminary called “How to Woo and Win Women by Being an Obnoxious Jerk”. He meant it for fun but there’s a lot of game principles in it.
His website has since locked access to it(shame!) but you get can the gist of what track he’s on from the TOC:
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Regarding the Wooing of Women
2. The Jerk Quotient
3. Making a Good Impression?
4. What does a Woman Want? A Real Man
5. Girl Logic
6. The Proper Use of Confusion
7. What Not to Say to a Woman
8. Being a Sensitive Man
9. How to be interesting
10. Using your face
11. Live to Dress or Dress to Live
12. You and Female Hormones
13. The Mothering Instinct
14. Conversation? What’s That?
15. Last Things
Not a very entertaining read though the way it is written.
No “Mode One” or “Oooooh . . . Say it Again”??? My ego is hurt.
I think the omission of all the recent crop of PUA material is deliberate- the list is about literature, not how-to manuals.
Well, my books are by no means literature … so I will give you that. But on the flip side, I have *NEVER* considered myself a “pick up artist” / PUA. My books are primarily about improving interpersonal communication skills … not about “gimmicks” and “scripts” to use with women. So, I do not think of my books in the category of “PUA material.”
“My books are primarily about improving interpersonal communication skills … not about “gimmicks” and “scripts” to use with women”
lol brb wearing my fuzzy hat out tonight cause its still 2004 apparently.
One question:
‘Who lies more? Men or Women?”
Most aspects of game, if not all, are covered by Rosalind’s advice while disguised as Ganymede in Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It.’ See also ‘Twelfth Night’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing.’ In case drawings are necessary, see René Girard’s ‘A Theater of Envy.’
Mickey Sabbath, the protagonist of Philip Roth’s “Sabbath’s Theater,” is the boldest of characters, nature’s animating life-force distilled in a depiction of dying, but still savage and raw male sexuality. The book is Roth’s best, and is among my very favorite novels. Highly recommended.
… Would you say these are… Great Books for Men?
Nine and a Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill, and Story of O by Pauline Reage
Along these lines, Never the Face is good too.
You forgot “50 Shades of Gray”. Oh wait…. it was “Great” books. Knockoff mommy porn need not apply. Though the dynamic there is pretty clear.
Always worth a link to the classic review:
http://delicioustacos.com/2012/03/23/book-review-fifty-shades-of-grey-by-e-l-james/
Ha! That reminds me of this gag (?) book review of “The Secret”. Without question: Best. Book. Review. Ever.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R2X2TB3S4O5I60/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
LOL, “11,865 of 12,621 people found the following review helpful”
I suppose “Gone with the Wind” counts – it was a book first, and the difference between Scarlett O’Hara’s attraction to Rhett Butler (alpha, asshole) vs. Ashley Wilkes (beta) is clear enough.
“Marjorie Morningstar” by Herman Wouk was written specifically to learn how the hamster works, so he could create realistic female characters in his later books.
Yes. I couldn’t believe a man wrote that book, it was so accurate. Although he couldn’t resist the fairy tale ending– the girl rejecting the alpha instead of the other way around.
His next book (Youngblood Hawke) was a fictionalized autobiography. In it, he says his sister had her own Noel Airman, and the book came partly from her story. She also had her happy ending with a beta provider, but he implies she was lucky to do so. His fictional counterpart, Hawke, writes the same book (Evelyn Biggers) but gives her an unhappy ending; the book is a flop.
Spot on.
That was my first alpha/beta lesson as a girl. That’s when I first discovered what I wanted.
C’mon Lily,as a girl you read nothing but Talmud,Talmud,Talmud!
Sorry, but women aren’t supposed to read the Talmud in traditional Judaism, and the modern liberal types aren’t interested.
Now you put shrewishness and a high verbal IQ together in a woman and what do you get…modern feminism!
Steinem, Friedan, Allred, all the Slate women writers…the list goes on.
There’s a reason I celebrate Yom Kippur with a bacon cheeseburger and shrimp cocktail at my local German restaurant.
filthy kike
[CH: Value not added.]
Perhaps Lily is short for Lilith.
Ketiva V’Chatima Tova! Shanah Tovah! Mazel Tov!
How about Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew? Specifically, the Burton/Taylor film adaptation.
It’s too archaic for a general audience, but Juvenal’s sixth Satire stiffens the sinews and summons the blood to identify timeless truths.
Saw this only after I posted below…:)
If you can French, read “Manon Lescaut”.
-As a cautionary tale of everything not to do.
Especially pedestalizing a Bernankified slut and thinking she can be saved, from herself; especially by Love.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Tom Jones
Much Ado About Nothing
The Sun Also Rises
“The Sun Also Rises”? Castrato game?
It’s the ultimate aloof game.
I’ll second the Unbearable Lightness of Being. And the Sun Also Rises, though it’s a funny choice given the protagonist’s unfortunate situation.
“My Secret Garden” and it’s sequel “Forbidden Flowers” by Nancy Friday. You don’t really understand female sexuality if you haven’t read these. And yes, your mom, your sister, and your Madonna one-itis have had similar fantasies.
Those are not really literature, but pop psychology- albeit of an unusually accurate/politically incorrect variety. It was the 70s, so every freak flag got to fly for a bit, which led in some cases, oddly, to traditional truths being openly spoken.
the second review for “my secret garden” is titled: “that tingly feeling!”
’nuff said.
Hey YR, if youre with a chick and you get out that book and start reading some of the fantasies in it to her i would imagine that would be a good idea.lol. have you tried that? how bout to a chick on the 1st or 2nd date?
i just read an excerpt of the first book..sounds like pure pussy lube.
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/062/998/bertstare.jpg
Ya, that shit literally just made me lol. Though, perhaps it can be blamed on the fact I’m just leaving work after working for last 22 hours. (Can we please switch places?????)
Hey YaReally, left a FR here a few days ago http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/beta-of-the-month-epic-showdown/#comment-475253
ahh shit man no not Bert and his nonblinking eyes
Best meme-response I’ve seen on this blog.
I dont deserve the Bert stare for that comment…besides i didnt phraze it right and im cooler than that..not by much tho..
Peter Pan the Disney movie is chock full of game. I know, because I have watched it about 500 times by now.
well, Peter is a rebel/bad boy of a sort. Although he does hang out with a fairy all the time.
I see no mention of Jesus, Moses, or Homer in these books about courtship which is where every aspiring womanizer should look first to get the power to induce gina tingles and butthexings..lolzlolzlolz
Or something like that.
Does Hitler have a contribution?
Try reading Mein Kampf (international bestseller). But in general his is an ideology of pedestalizing women.
I would add ‘The Girls’ by Henry de Montherlant.
Juvenal’s Sixth Satire.
… I am aware
of whatever councils you old friends warn,
i.e. “throw the bolt and lock her in.” But who is going to guard the
guards themselves, who now keep silent the lapses of the loose
girl – paid off in the same coin? The common crime keeps its silence.
A prudent wife looks ahead and starts (her infidelities) with them.
Are you even in this day and age preparing both a prenup
and an engagement, and getting a trim from a master
barber, and you have even perchance given the pledge to her finger?
You certainly used to be healthy. Postumus, are you getting married?
Tell me by what Fury and by what vipers you are goaded.
Can you endure any Master-ess when there are so many good strong ropes,
When high, vertiginous windows are wide open,
when the Aemilian bridge offers itself to you – just right next door?
Or if from so many options no mode of death strikes your fancy,
Surely you think it better that a supple boy sleep with you?
A boy, who does not conduct a nocturnal lawsuit at you, who wheedles
no little gifts from you as he lies there, and neither complains because
you are going easy on him, nor because you don’t gasp as much as he demands.
lines 6.60-81 – Marry a woman and an actor will become a father instead of you.
lines 6.82-113 – Eppia, a senator’s wife, ran off to Egypt with a gladiator. (alpha dude)
lines 6.114-141 – Messalina, wife of Claudius, sneaked out of the palace to work at a brothel.
lines 6.142-160 – Men love a pretty face, not the woman. When she gets old, they kick her out. Fuck yeah!
Henry James’ The Bostonians is literally about the seduction of a feminist, how has that not been mentioned?
“The Bostonians” is Henry James’s send-up of life among the feminists, but it’s not his most engaging novel, and Olive is a bit of a l.u.g. anyway (that was the term in Wellesley for “lebsian until graduation”; maybe still is).
Better to read “Portrait of a Lady” for Gilbert Osmond, a gold digging single dad layabout living in Florence who snags an intelligent but naive girl with a fortune, who rejects the marriage proposals of two rich guys before meeting him.
Here’s the fun cover for an older French edition of The Bostonians.
http://www.amazon.fr/Les-bostoniennes-James-Henry/dp/B0000DOR4J/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1378398565&sr=8-4&keywords=les+bostoniennes
The Diaries of William Byrd are pretty hilarious as he rogures his way through 18th century Tidewater gentry, though not sure they would provide any helpful tips tips for aspiring womanizers.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, by Lord Byron. Hell, even a biography of Byron would do. He was described by one of his many conquests as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” which is a pretty good description of alpha.
Dosoyevsky’s Notes From Underground. This book has the best neg in recorded literature.
I just finished reading “Turn, Magic Wheel” by Dawn Powell and it has a good portrayal of an alpha male in the form of a novelist called Andrew Callingham who goes through multiple relationships with women. It shows how he sees women and how they see him.
9 1/2 Weeks was a great film completely misunderstood by feminists at the time and dissed as sexist and masochistic.
But watch the opening and how the Mickey Rourke character totally games “Elizabeth”: push-pull, aloof, compliance testing like when he brings her to his houseboat then then starts making the bed. When she says he’s taking some liberties he starts to scare her by escalating sexually.
When he finally bangs her the first time—about date 4 she is totally obsessed with him.
That line: “I saw myself in you” pure gold….
Great movie from a game perspective.
The problem with relying on literature for advice is that it has always been consumed mainly by women. The first novels in China and Japan were romance novels for women (Tale of Genji, Dream of the Red Chamber), and the Victorian novels repeated the pattern. To see what women really want through literature you need to be able to read and comprehend women’s thoughts, which doesn’t come naturally to men.
For most men this is a waste of time. They will never get it, and thank God for that! If all men devoted themselves to “understanding” women there would be no other accomplishments to speak of.
Just teach men to view society in a hierarchical manner, with women beneath them as their charges, and it will serve them far better than any amount of study of female psychology.
Come to think of it, that’s what the Bible, the Koran, the Analects and the Bhagavad Gita all do. This is the kind of literature men should read — the classics. Leave novels and “high culture” to the rare men who have the ability to read between the lines.
Good point. Just compare a man’s book shelves with a woman’s (these days it’s a plus if she has one though).
I think that the Marquis de Sade deserves a shout out.
“The only way to a woman’s heart is along the path of torment.”
― Marquis de Sade
You forgot Eat, Prey, Love
I consider Casanova’s autobiography to be the greatest piece of literature I’ve come across. If you’re just looking for some straight forward pick up advice, it’s not the book for you. To appreciate the pick-up related value of his memoirs, you need to look deeper into the text and analyse his personal characteristics to understand why he was so successful with women, (his name, after all, is practically synonymous with womanizing now.)
But there’s more to Casanova than just the fact that his affairs with women numbered in the triple digits during the 18th century; he was a genuinely extraordinary man. He spent every minute of his life plotting and scheming and finding a new way of getting what he wanted, and he had no regard for societal expectations. He fucked nuns and the wives of powerful men and even took the virginity of a woman the night before her wedding to another man (Casanova did it because considered the man to be unworthy of her and didn’t want him to have her as a virgin.) And he constantly got away with these things throughout his life.
When he was finally put into prison he was given an intederminate sentence without a trial. He was put up in a high-security prison called the Leads which the locals all feared because the people that ended up there were never seen again and no one had ever escaped.
Typically, Casanova found a way out through the roof of the 6 story building and somehow managed to get down to the ground and escape to France. The story of his prison break became famous throughout Europe and he became something of a celebrity. Alexandre Dumas later wrote his famous novel, The Count of Monte Christo, in which the prison break is largely based around Casanova’s real life escape.
As ever, from the ferocious Charles W.:
http://tinyurl.com/CharlesWilleford-MiamiBlues
http://tinyurl.com/Willeford-Custard
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History by Howard Bloom.
Oscar Wilde. Don’t deny it.
Schopenhauer’s essays on women, love, art, men and society and moral are pretty accurate on their description, a tad romanticized and with curly language, but the message is clear and to the point
Arthur Schopenhauer’s essay “On Women.” I always thought that it was a basic piece everybody read for game. I control+F’d his name and he didn’t come up.
Every book written/movie made before 1960 is “recommended” insofar as it tells of the time before feminism corrupted both sexes. The generations we were born into will be a footnote in history. We are the anomaly.
“Wait, you mean women wanted to be men at the end of the 20th century, and men went along with it?”
Read history, fellows. It is the only way to put our fucked-up era in perspective. It was not always thus, it will not ever be thus.
Matt
I’ve read some of Cassanova, the real ones. He had the the classy world game/playful adventurer angle.