http://www.bodipua.com/death-by-a-thousand-sluts-part-two/

Death by a Thousand Sluts

A friend’s teenage daughter was accosted in Oxford Street and exchanged telephone numbers with what now appears to have been a pick up artist (pua). Something disagreeable appeared about her on social media, so her father got onto the man, who turned out to be quite innocent.

My son lent me this memoir by a pick up artist, which he said was the funniest book he had read for some time. Originally the author had signed up for a course on how to approach women. His training began in bars and nightclubs. This, the second volume, is about what they call day game, which is picking up girls in the street. I only read the second volume which is said to be funnier and better written than the first.

The decline of the modern British novel is little to do with what is written and far more with what gets past the censors. This book is part of a long tradition, and worthy to be compared with classics of its genre. It recalls works like J P Donleavy’s The Ginger Man and the novels of Henry Miller, men of earlier generations also much concerned with getting laid. Another comparison that comes to mind is with Luke Reinhart’s The Dice Man, what appears to be an amusing even satirical novel, but which like Bodi’s may be more disturbingly understood as a slice of autobiography, even if embellished.

Any man is partly the product of his era, each of which is unique. Ours is that of aggressive feminism with all the strident force of morality behind it. As literature this book is an act of resistance, well written, enlightening and very funny. Rebelling against the conventional morality of their own day, Miller and Donleavy are strongly life affirming. You might think this story is too till you get to the final chapters which are much darker.

Here men are classified as alpha, beta or gamma or worse. The categories are not fixed. The object of the pua is to turn himself into an alpha male. Politically puas lean to the right. In his bibliography at the end Bodi recommends books by Ayn Rand, Theodore Dalrymple and Richard Dawkins, which does spoil the effect a bit.

As an active pua living in a house with other puas, Bodi indeed accumulates a great fund of knowledge about female psychology. Such learning is fascinating, and the danger is that it could usurp other interests. Much intensity is diverted from more ordinary concerns. After four years Bodi, as T S Eliot says of Sweeney, “knows the female temperament”. For a poet like Eliot sublimation of the sexual instinct created new pathways for contemplative enjoyment. Life brought frustration, failure and regret for which there is compensation. Art is produced which is source of much pleasure for others.

Seen through a lens of male fantasy, it can seem Bodi has arrived at the perfect solution to sexual angst. Reading to the end and discovering that he has not offers some encouragement to his readers. You end up not feeling so bad about yourself. This self published book deserves to be promoted as representative literature of our times.