The Art of Seduction
by Robert Greene
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Book Reviews of The Art of Seduction
Book Review: I am a victim. This is a dangerous book. Everybody should read it.
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a self-confident, self-motivated, self-directed individual who pretty much knows exactly what to do and when to do things to get the preferred results. I am a smiling, friendly and mostly a charismatic person. At least that's how I used to be before I met this girl in my Freshman composition class.
She was very attractive and I fell in love with her. She exercised the seduction techniques mentioned in this book (such as stirring interest indirectly, creting triangles, getting close to me and giving the impression of like-mindedness etc) to make that happen and it came to a point where I was fantasizing her with me in her life. She was all that I was thinking of. I was losing grip over my life. I somehow became dependent of her. She then started coquetting and withdrawing herself. I gradually started losing my self-esteem and I was no more that charismatic person with self-confidence and self-esteem. I was doing things that she thought would ultimately would lead to our mutual pleasure...but it only made both of us empty.
Finally, one day she drove me to a isolated forest...and I thought she was going to have us do something pleasurable (finally). She just asked me to step out of the car and handed some papers and got in her car and left me there stranded. I was devastated. I started reading the papers. It was titled "The Seduction of <my name>". It started with a character map of me...everything that she had observed about me, my weaknesses, what gave me my self-confidence etc. Then there were list of steps, almost like a manual, that described how she seduced me step-by-step. Then there were extracts from personal journal entries that described how, initially when we'd first met, she admired my quality of self-confidence and how much she wanted to have control over someone like me...primarily because of her own lack of it...and how over time she got bored of playing me like an instrument and how predictable I became etc. She didn't enjoy me anymore. So, she decided to dump me in the middle of the forest with this fact sheet. I was lying on the ground there crying my lungs out to death with limbs too weak to move. I completely lost my self-esteem and was at a point where I wanted her to accept me as her slave and was honoured by that thought. I couldn't even look up at people's faces anymore. This is the worst form of exploitation there exists. It almost feels like being eaten alive by insects from the inside and not being able to do anything about it.
Few days after this devastation, I googled and found this book. I read it and it revealed to me how someone as intellectually incompetent as herself could do something as vicious as this. It made me feel a lot better to know how exactly the worst thing ever to happen in my life happened. Now I feel that everybody should read this book...just to avoid being exploited in this way, if not for anything else.
Cautionary notes:-
As for those of you who were inspired by the cinematic quality of what happened to me and are motivated to use the techniques mentioned in the book to drain admirable qualities off someone for self-gratification, I have to warn you by letting you know why she even had to dump me like that. She, after reading the book, had to condition herself against expressing any genuine emotions and had to perfect the impression of genuineness of her made up emotions. She conceded in one of her later personal journal entries that she was in a sort of psychological trap. She started having trouble doing even simple things such as expressing genuine awe or even anger. She always felt the need to go by the rules. It made her less of a real human being and more of an imitation of an 'admirable human being'. When I recently contacted her, she said she needs professional help because she is very confused in discerning emotions that come from within and those that are just made up. She's messed up.
As for the testimonials of these admirable people (who 'practice' the art of seduction) thrown around in Greene's book, I have to inform you that those people are genuine human beings with natural seductive mannerisms. The most dangerous aspect of this book is Greene's portrayal of them as people who calculated their behavior and that ability to calculate behavior as being admirable. It inspires people to look at themselves and their naturally arising feelings with belittling eyes and to try to become these admirable people with admirable statistics. It also inspires them to lower the value for their genuine emotions. In my erudite opinion, focusing on your behavior and trying to adjust it using the feedback it receives from outside rather than using one's judgment from within leads to termination of personal growth. If you're so desperate to have a reputable history of 'conquests' when you're older as to compromise on investment in your personal growth and true exploration of human relations, then go ahead and seduce people into falling in love with you for all the wrong reasons'and become an imitation. Remember that unforeseen pleasures are often the most gratifying.
Book Review: Are you being fooled by Greene's seductive language?
Summary: 5 Stars
DO NOT lie to yourself. None of us picked up this book to guard themselves against future abusers and seducers. None of us were trying to be "safe" or "practical"--if books like this didn't exist, the world wouldn't need to know these tricks in order to protect themselves.
There are two schools of thought that the average reader seems to have:
1) This book is not inherently evil; it depends on how it is used. Besides, if you don't know the rules of seduction, how can you keep from being seduced?
and
2) This book IS evil; it strips down and dehumanizes the entire rest of the world, ruining both the life of the seducer and the lives of the "seduced."
I will not be able to change your mind by stating my opinion--most people are not going to change their opinion about anything in their life, no matter what someone else says. What I will bring to your attention is the fact that this book has powerful manipulative power in and of itself. If you honestly believe every word this book says, be careful--Robert Greene is seducing you.
Think about it. The guy is a master of power, the author of two very successful, very influential tomes. Why wouldn't he use his carefully cultivated powers of influence (manipulation) to fool millions of readers into believing every word he says?
First, let's take a look at how the book is laid out. In the Preface, Robert Greene is constantly charming you, begging you to stay with him throughout the book. "It is pointless to try to argue against such power, to imagine that you are not interested in it, or that it is evil and ugly. The harder you try to resist the lure of seduction--as an idea, as a form of power--the more you will become fascinated" (Greene xxi).
Look at that quote meticulously for a moment. He knows that most people who have picked up the book are feeling timid and queasy, because in their guts they know that this book is trouble. So he brings this emotion to the spotlight, and assures you that no one is able to resist this temptation, that the more you hide from it, the more it will grab you. Automatically, he has "insinuated" in your head the thought that you are powerless, that you need (not WANT, but NEED)seduction to feel confident. Never mind the fact that you have gone all your life without using it (hopefully).
At the end of the preface, he then ends with the sentence "Slowly you will find yourself absorbing the poison through your skin...you will begin to see everything as a seduction..." (Greene xxv). POISON? You have suspected all along that this book is poison. Now, he is not directly instructing you to drink it--he just wants it to be near you, so that it can tempt you. Maybe a little of the poison will rub off on you, with minimal effort on your part.
Do you really want more poison in your life?
As the book continues, he gives descriptions of each of the nine seducers. Notice that he fills your head with intoxicating images of historical figures, such as Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, Casanova, Valentino, and royalty such as Queen Victoria. He is dazzling you with these images to make you believe that you can have the glory and power that they had.
Do you think that that's REALLY a reasonable conclusion to make?
The rest of the book is laid out somewhat coldly--he comes right out and says that you are stirring anxiety and discomfort, "victimizing" people, keeping them guessing, creating confusion. By now, he's got you hooked. It doesn't matter what he says--we will just eat it out of the palms of his hands.
I know that you might feel powerless, angry, in need of love. But this book will only lead to further destruction. And it certainly will not give you love. The absurdity that struck me most in this book is the notion of the Ideal Lover. "If another person seems to have that ideal quality...we fall in love." You cannot make someone love you by acting as their ideal. Love isn't some sick game. And, quite honestly, it has nothing to do with qualities, interests, or goals that someone might possess. Love is a mystery--most of the time, one cannot really tell why he is in love. Just like you can't stop loving someone if you do--you can't make someone love you if they don't already.
So, if you're interested in a guide to make someone addicted to your cycles of manipulation, pleasure, and pain--go for it.
If you're intersted in love, stop sitting inside reading and get out of the house!
ONE MORE THING: The reason why I gave this five stars is that it is a masterpiece and a very entertaining read. I literally cannot put it down, despite how much it makes my stomach turn. If you really want to be shocked, amazed, and spellbound, then I highly recommend it.
OTHERWISE, stay the hell away from it. It is poison.
Book Review: Psychological nuclear energy
Summary: 5 Stars
As its more tangible counterpart, this information can destroy or sustain. From one standpoint I am just glad to have a pretty well organized blueprint of human actions: a lens through which I can categorize things I see. Personally, I intend to take it no further than to add some spice to certain relationships (and to wary myself against manipulative behavior): a pretty narrow application, I admit, but I'd have paid far more than $10 to get this information.
To whom does the book apply?
Seduction is a very general term. In that sense everybody needs to know more about, or how to defend against it because you WILL be seduced at several points in your life and it is likely that at least one of those events will significantly alter your future. HOWEVER, the book itself is far too corrupting for some reader groups, and a pretty obvious subject is divulged in far more than others. Definitely, as far as teens are concerned I wouldn't have them read this directly - but in the hands of a concerned parent or someone who can see beyond the sexual overtones, or maybe even use them beneficially in their marriage {though I can imagine ruined relationships due to too brusque experimentation} it CAN {and that's really the operative word here} give you insights into the human psyche like few books you're likely to read: if you choose to, you can spend minutes meditating on each page and even more trying to link a chain between various parts of the book to a particular situation in your life. IMO, there's that much good content.
I've read my share of books: just finishing a very good 'The World is Flat', but 'The Art of Seduction' is the first that I consider a member of the 'red hot' category: my highest tier of books, to which I have not yet added one. What sets it apart from 'sequential books' that are unable to escape their content is that it provides a solid informational foundation for the thought process it instigates. That framework to me is the most valuable contribution - even if the author, and certainly some of the reviewers who got stuck on 'this book is bad because it advocates this, or that' only intended or noticed a prescribed linear applicative methodology.
There are those who, in regards to 'The Art of Seduction,' aim to
a) get too much ...
The book itself, is massive, and overwhelming - lives of famous lovers and courtesans cover only a few pages each, and the fascinating lifestyle can make the gullible experiment with things they're not ready for - indeed no one person embodies the full raucousness enclosed, but it is alluring to try to grasp it all as a reader.
b) get too little ...
To treat it as a 20th or 21st century self-help book, where the main effort expounded is in the uncovering of the procedure by the author, misses the point.
What this is, is a very interesting and well-expressed beginner/intermediate course in psychology whose practicability depends on how much you want to meditate and use to unlock certain aspects of your life: how much you get out of it depends far more on YOU than other texts. It will require a lot more imagination because the real deep learning in this scenario many times cannot be 1-to-1 applied (few are likely to live even one or two of the circumstances described, but one can definitely learn from EACH) - I believe this lack of perception is the motive for some of the negative reviews, though some of the positives probably equidistantly veer in the opposite direction (a shallow fascination with the admittedly very interesting and well narrated anecdotes.)
So for all those who want a 1-2-3 book to picking up a 36-24-36 chick, look elsewhere and spare a good literary work your equally-weighted terrible reviews. As James discovered, 'This is not much of a self-help.' Shattered expectations, however, are not equivalent to bad content.
[Self-help books are the 'cheat-sheets' for life, but Casanova didn't have a step by step program for wooing women. Knowledge and insight generate actions when inflexible techniques fall short. They both have their uses however, particularly with self-help books helping to add a focus to the 'how' that they 'why' books sometimes lack]
Book Review: Not for the faint of heart.
Summary: 5 Stars
If you are just looking for a good book to help you get laid with minimal effort, then put this book down. There are books that are much easier and will get you results much faster. This book is not about getting easy pussy at a bar or strip joint. It is about helping a person fall deeply in love with you, and this is better. A person in lust for you is wild and not concerned about you. A person in love with you will go to the ends of the earth for you.
If you have very little background in psychology and/or philosophy, put this book down because you're not ready to understand it yet. It is an incredible book and I hope you don't get turned off because you're not prepared to read it.
If you are a die hard, conservative Christian moralist who is happy with their life and belief system, then PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE put this book down. Your beliefs will change to some extent, I promise, regardless of how strong you think they are. And if they don't you'll just be filled with dissonant emotions when you really understand what the Bible means when it says the world can be a terrible place.
On the other hand, if you are intelligent, observant, and patient then this is just simply an incredible read. You will see everything in this world with a new outlook. It will teach you the most intricate workings of human nature. Human nature is dark. Consider the following two biological facts:
1. A woman is likely to retain more sperm when she has an orgasm during sex.
2. A man's sperm is designed to kill the sperm of other men.
What does this mean? Women have been biologically hardwired to seek one man (the Alpha male) to be the sperm donor and to seek out another to raise the kid (the Beta male). Sorry folks, nature is just that dark. And this book has exactly the same kind of dark twists. It explains what makes people fall for other people, even if it is not so pure and wholesome. And though it is dark, it still is true, and there is beauty in truth.
This book will teach you how to play other people's emotions. This is a very important thing to learn. One cannot survive in this world without these skills. The most important thing people must realize about this book is that what is containes here is a dual edged sword. It most certainly can be used for evil. It does teach manipulation. But it also a book that can be used for good. With this kind of knowledge one can keep their partner happy for life. A seducer is a benevolent manipulator by definition.
For instance, if the seducer is really interested in mutual benefit, much useful learning will take place. A woman will learn that the most powerful way to keep her man happy is to be a sexual woman and a fun playmate. She will learn how to keep things spiced up with a few masculine psychological traits to appeal to masculine narcissism, deepen a man's love by giving him the gift of missing her. A man will learn how important it is to let his woman know how much he desires her and will also keep things spiced up with styling. Men and women can both learn how to keep people happy by being nondefensive and natural, to psychologically enrich others by being charismatic and charming, and to give and receive love as ideal lovers. And I've seen how much people who embody the psychological traits of the anti-seducer are despised by other people. The anti-seducer leaves people feeling diminished and hurt.
To summarize, it's hard, it's dark, and it can be used to wreak havoc in the lives of others. But most people don't want to hurt others. They want to live, and help other people live, better, happier more enriched lives in all ways. I truly believe that with the knowledge that is in this book, people can accomplish just that.
Use it wisely, young Jedi. The dark side of the force is much more seductive.
Book Review: The Devil Can Site Scripture For His Purposes--and history
Summary: 1 Stars
" I use the word amoral to describe them, as opposed to immoral," author Robert Greene stated in an interview about his international bestsellers.
Interesting distinction.
As one enters Mr. Greene's website for "The Art of Seduction" four maxims for seduction flash and disappear on the screen like the images shown to Warren Beatty in "The Parallax View":
Choose the Right Victim
Send Mixed Signals
Confuse desire and Reality
Create a False Sense of Security.
(The third is extremely odd since, again, in an interview, Mr.Greene stated, "If I could simplify the whole game of power and strategy in one equation, it would all hinge on the capacity to see events around you exactly as they are.")
Dig a little deeper into the website (and the book) and Greene lays down other rules of the art, which, as disturbingly predatory as they are, are rationalized as tutorials in self-protection: "If you know how others do these things, you'll be in a better position to protect yourself against those who employ such tactics." To take this argument to its logical extreme imagine a book with a dozen or so rules on how to launch a prostitution ring and recruit hookers so you'll be better able to insulate your own daughter or sister from the guile of pimps.
A few more of the moves to be mastered to become an arch-seducer:
Create a false sense of security
Stir anxiety and discontent
Create temptation
Use the demonic power of words to sow confusion
Use Spiritual Lures
Isolate the Victim.
Clearly, Robert Greene is dangerously confused about the practical and objective similarities between "amorality" and immorality.
Consider the following positions of two individuals:
The first: "It is immoral to act or speak in such a way to inflict pain on another human being solely for the purposes of satisfying one's own desires".
The second: "People do inflict pain on others for selfish reasons. I am not saying whether it is right or wrong; I will merely instruct you how to do it and leave the moral distinctions to you."
Mr. Greene's assertion that proposing strategies to manipulate another, confuse an individual, inflict psychological pain to whatever degree on someone, and create in another a distorted worldview
that gives him or her a false sense of security is something other than immoral does not even pass the laugh test.
It doesn't matter if the endgame is sex, power, or financial gain. Bernie Madoff is doing the equivalent of life plus 99 years because he was a grandmaster of seduction,
At the end of the day, however, the real problem-the ultimate moral problem with Mr.Greene's book--is that it is not about art but artiface--strategems, trickery, and the employment of base cunning to bend another's will to our own. Its quite telling that Mr. Greene trots some of history's most nefrarius figures as examples of "the art" mastered. Gandhi, Churchill, or Martin Luther King had nothing to say about psychological persuasion? (One need not even consider the obvious that in almost every human sexual encounter where the emotions run hot mixed singles are sent unconsciously, desire and reality almost always conflict, runaway hormones alternate between giving us profound feelings of security and insecurity, and the mating ritual is a marathon attempt to provoke temptation.
Save yourself a few bucks and pick up a used copy of Balthazar Gracian's "The Art of Worldly Wisdom" which Mr. Greene rarely mentions but which covers the same ground and would quite likely be as revelationary and transformative for some as this treatise on predation.