Bronze Age Pervert
(Self-published, June 2018)
198 Pages
Reviewed by Matt Forney
Two months ago, I bought Bronze Age Mindset, the debut book from dissident right figure and self-styled “aspiring nudist bodybuilder” Bronze Age Pervert, with the intent of reading it and reviewing it not long after. And yet, whenever I sat down and tried to put my thoughts into a comprehensible format, I ended up staring at a blank screen. Terror House Editor-at-Large (and my friend) Calvin Westra put it like this: “[Bronze Age Mindset] is a tough book to talk about [because] you either get it or you don’t, and explaining it to normies without ruining the magic of it is impossible.”
He had a point, but in nearly a decade of writing, I’ve only encountered one book that defied reviewing, and that’s just because the writing style gave me a major headache. BAP’s book, on the other hand, was a joy to read from beginning to end, so there’s no excuse for me not to push this one out, like a Bronze Age woman giving birth on the poop deck of a Phoenician trireme. And for some reason, an incident I witnessed the weekend I started reading Bronze Age Mindset kept coming back to me.
I was in Mukachevo, an out-of-the-way Ukrainian city that lives up to every American stereotype about the ex-Soviet Union. I was walking to Palanok Castle, a medieval Hungarian castle and the city’s only real tourist attraction, when I saw an old guy who was drunk out of his mind on the other side of the street, stumbling and wobbling around despite it only being one in the afternoon. A tubby woman on a bike, too absorbed in her smartphone to notice the drunk’s ambling gait, slammed right into him, sending both of them to the pavement.
The fat girl recovered pretty quickly, but the drunk simply lay on the ground moaning like a masturbating retard. She walked to him and started cursing him out in Ukrainian, presumably screaming about how he had gotten in her way, but the drunk just kept moaning, ignoring her. She eventually got on her bike and sped off. I considered crossing the street to help the old guy, but thought better of it. Being a good Samaritan can be hazardous in Ukraine.
The day before, I’d been poking around the side streets of downtown Mukachevo when I saw a guy who’d clearly been fucked up in a fight: he was walking with a severe limp and his face and shirt were covered in blood. I told these stories to Terror House Senior Editor Glahn and he commented that it “sounds like [you’re] in the Wild West, Matt.”
I’ve been through more harrowing situations—attempted shakedowns, getting lost in third-world slums, running for my life from angry cucks—but the point was made. Mukachevo is one of those places close to the edge, where you can see the dirt and grime poking up through holes in the thin veneer of civilization.
It’s also one of those places where the lines on the map start to blur. Originally known as Munkács, it and the surrounding Transcarpathia region were part of the Kingdom of Hungary for a thousand years, before getting traded to Czechoslovakia after the first World War and annexed by the Soviet Union after the second. Transcarpathia’s native Hungarian population was ethnically cleansed and replaced with Ukrainians and Russians from other parts of the U.S.S.R., while Mukachevo’s sizable Jewish population was liquidated in the Holocaust.
Perhaps that’s why Bronze Age Mindset resonated with me so strongly: I was in a place where its principles and ideas were just simmering below the surface.
I don’t know Bronze Age Pervert, but I know of him: his name cast a long shadow even before his book came out. Despite the jokey title—Gorilla Mindset is three years old, people, that meme is expired—Bronze Age Mindset stands above the fray as a genuine work of art. It’s not politics, it’s not philosophy—indeed, BAP says it is “not book of philosophy” [sic], but a book of “exhortation”—but a thunderclap, a lonely yell from a bygone era that is intruding on our soy-filled world.
Caveat emptor, however: your ability to enjoy Bronze Age Mindset is contingent on you getting past BAP’s bizarre prose style. The book isn’t merely unedited in the way that many self-published books are; BAP writes like a man who barely understands the English language itself. Here’s a sample from the opening chapters:
Bronze Age Mindset is a book-length digression on the ills of the modern world as contrasted with the glories of epochs past, delving into history, biology, current events, and conspiracy theories. In particular, the book explains why Bronze Age Pervert chose his name, as he explains that the Bronze Age was when humanity peaked:
Early in his career, Bowden published Mad and Sade, two books that are superficially similar to Bronze Age Mindset, featuring unusual spelling, constant shifts in subject matter, and run-on paragraphs, yet still forming a cohesive whole. Mad was a lament against the state of the modern world and is the lesser of the two works, while Sade was a study of the life of the Marquis de Sade, who Bowden argued was one of the most influential figures of modern civilization.
The Marquis de Sade was the polar opposite of BAP’s “Bronze Age pirate.” He was a man who lived not for glory, honor, or country, but to sate his unending material lusts. Feminists like Andrea Dworkin who excoriated Sade for his “misogyny” ignored the fact that by late 1700’s standards, he was a feminist, seeking to liberate women from patriarchal bonds so they could better indulge his sexual fantasies. Despite being of noble blood, he disclaimed his aristocratic titles following the French Revolution so that he could join in the regicide. Sade was the original bugman, focused entirely on amusing himself in the moment and demanding that society aid him in this goal.
The French Revolution was the event that begat our modern, sterilized world. From the legalization of homosexuality to the emancipation of women to the division of politics into left and right wings, our modern society was planted in the poisoned earth bequeathed by the burning of the Bastille. The Marquis de Sade represented the inevitable conclusion of that revolution against God, the king, and tradition: a man who sought nothing but pleasure, unrestrained by law, morality, or familial bonds. “Veal wrapped in cotton,” as Common Filth put it.
No wonder Sade was killed by his fellow revolutionaries: he was a living, breathing Dorian Grey portrait of the Jacobins. Or, as Heath Ledger’s Joker might put it, Sade wasn’t a monster: he was just ahead of the curve.
Bowden’s monograph on Sade serves a purpose not unlike Bronze Age Mindset: a full-throated cry against the lies of the modern world. Sade is purely reactive, showing how Sade was the id of the Enlightenment, unshackled by the Revolution and set loose on the catamites and whores of France; Bronze Age Mindset is proactive, showing what life was like before managerialism turned men into housecats, back during the age of the pirate.
The “Bronze Age pirate” that BAP describes is not simply a hedonistic freebooter: he is a man with a mission, a man who seeks to leave a legacy, a man who refuses to be caged. Nor is he an onanistic self-improver in the mold of Norman Vincent Peale, but a hero who sees his mind and body as inseparable halves of a whole. The Bronze Age pirate seeks to transcend the limitations of his surroundings and make a name for himself, guided by his moral code, his tribal loyalties, and his force of will.
Bronze Age Mindset doesn’t have solutions for the problems of modern society. While Bronze Age Pervert offers some practical advice for young men, the book as a whole doesn’t bill itself as a roadmap to escaping modernity. It doesn’t need to. Bronze Age Mindset is a thunderclap in printed form, a reminder of humanity’s origin and purpose, where it has come from and what it can become. Bronze Age Pervert’s street preacher-esque tone and garbled prose sell these idea far better than any history book or documentary could.
One wonders how much longer Bronze Age Mindset will be available for sale. With Amazon and other book distributors now pulling popular un-PC titles, I can’t imagine that BAP’s runaway success will go unnoticed. It’s something I’m thinking about as I lay the preparations for Terror House Press. With that in mind, you should read Bronze Age Mindset before doing so becomes illegal.
He had a point, but in nearly a decade of writing, I’ve only encountered one book that defied reviewing, and that’s just because the writing style gave me a major headache. BAP’s book, on the other hand, was a joy to read from beginning to end, so there’s no excuse for me not to push this one out, like a Bronze Age woman giving birth on the poop deck of a Phoenician trireme. And for some reason, an incident I witnessed the weekend I started reading Bronze Age Mindset kept coming back to me.
I was in Mukachevo, an out-of-the-way Ukrainian city that lives up to every American stereotype about the ex-Soviet Union. I was walking to Palanok Castle, a medieval Hungarian castle and the city’s only real tourist attraction, when I saw an old guy who was drunk out of his mind on the other side of the street, stumbling and wobbling around despite it only being one in the afternoon. A tubby woman on a bike, too absorbed in her smartphone to notice the drunk’s ambling gait, slammed right into him, sending both of them to the pavement.
The fat girl recovered pretty quickly, but the drunk simply lay on the ground moaning like a masturbating retard. She walked to him and started cursing him out in Ukrainian, presumably screaming about how he had gotten in her way, but the drunk just kept moaning, ignoring her. She eventually got on her bike and sped off. I considered crossing the street to help the old guy, but thought better of it. Being a good Samaritan can be hazardous in Ukraine.
The day before, I’d been poking around the side streets of downtown Mukachevo when I saw a guy who’d clearly been fucked up in a fight: he was walking with a severe limp and his face and shirt were covered in blood. I told these stories to Terror House Senior Editor Glahn and he commented that it “sounds like [you’re] in the Wild West, Matt.”
I’ve been through more harrowing situations—attempted shakedowns, getting lost in third-world slums, running for my life from angry cucks—but the point was made. Mukachevo is one of those places close to the edge, where you can see the dirt and grime poking up through holes in the thin veneer of civilization.
It’s also one of those places where the lines on the map start to blur. Originally known as Munkács, it and the surrounding Transcarpathia region were part of the Kingdom of Hungary for a thousand years, before getting traded to Czechoslovakia after the first World War and annexed by the Soviet Union after the second. Transcarpathia’s native Hungarian population was ethnically cleansed and replaced with Ukrainians and Russians from other parts of the U.S.S.R., while Mukachevo’s sizable Jewish population was liquidated in the Holocaust.
Perhaps that’s why Bronze Age Mindset resonated with me so strongly: I was in a place where its principles and ideas were just simmering below the surface.
I don’t know Bronze Age Pervert, but I know of him: his name cast a long shadow even before his book came out. Despite the jokey title—Gorilla Mindset is three years old, people, that meme is expired—Bronze Age Mindset stands above the fray as a genuine work of art. It’s not politics, it’s not philosophy—indeed, BAP says it is “not book of philosophy” [sic], but a book of “exhortation”—but a thunderclap, a lonely yell from a bygone era that is intruding on our soy-filled world.
Caveat emptor, however: your ability to enjoy Bronze Age Mindset is contingent on you getting past BAP’s bizarre prose style. The book isn’t merely unedited in the way that many self-published books are; BAP writes like a man who barely understands the English language itself. Here’s a sample from the opening chapters:
The most noble animals refuse to breed in captivity. Many animal, not just man, choose death when trapped. But I thought all life strove for mere survival and reproduction; but this not enough? But if not enough then must understand animal in some other way. Very much when thinkers talk about “evolutionary psychology” they abstract from way of yeast to way of animals and man, but this is backward.Glahn describes BAP as writing like Tarzan, like a man who has just ambled into the petting zoo of civilization after a lifetime in the wilderness, and I agree. While some of his stylistic tics can be annoying at first (such as his penchant for beginning sentences with “is” or writing paragraphs that stretch on for pages), I gradually came to enjoy BAP’s diction. The book roars at you like a lion, getting your attention without relying on subtlety or trickery.
Bronze Age Mindset is a book-length digression on the ills of the modern world as contrasted with the glories of epochs past, delving into history, biology, current events, and conspiracy theories. In particular, the book explains why Bronze Age Pervert chose his name, as he explains that the Bronze Age was when humanity peaked:
…Many times I’m asked, why the Bronze Age? Because it’s the heroic age you see in Iliad and Odyssey, yes, but don’t forget what hero really means. Thucydides says the men of that time enjoyed piracy, and saw nothing wrong with it, and this is true. And what is the pirate but the original form of the free man and of all ascending life! How pathetic, when you are told now about “living life,” or “having a life”—these people know nothing about what true life means. Compare the intensity of Alcibiades, that super-pirate, or of what I am about to describe here, to the “life” you’re encouraged to “have” today. How worthless the vaunting of these anxious creatures who live on pharmaceuticals, cheap wine, the rancid fart-fumes of status and approval they beg from each other…In BAP’s estimation, the Bronze Age was when men lived free: truly free, not the freedom of being able to choose which trendy restaurant to eat dinner at or which butt on Tinder to fuck, but the freedom to impose your will on the world. It was the age that laid the foundation of the modern world through myths of larger-than-life characters such as Odysseus and Achilles. Throughout the book, BAP names several modern figures who embody what he calls the spirit of the “Bronze Age pirate,” including one of my favorites, the French mercenary Bob Denard:
…His greatest feat was to overthrow the government of the Comoros four times. Each time France had to send special forces to the islands to dislodge him. Otherwise he would have surely become a hereditary ruler. He had many wives and won many properties by the power of his hand. At the end of his life…well…this life lasted too long. He should have died in defense of his territory, younger, and without descending into the dementia and pain that took him in old age. France repaid his service with persecution; no longer needed to fight communists in Africa, his vainglory and ferocity became a liability…At the forefront of Bronze Age Mindset is the sterility of modern life, the way it cages men and forces them to live like domesticated animals. He attributes this in part to the way in which men have allowed women to assume positions of power, referring to women scientists as “spiritual lesbians” and calling women’s liberation the “greatest weakening and self-own a civilization has ever visited on itself.” Despite this, BAP doesn’t call for white sharia or the rollback of women’s rights, viewing them as a weapon that can be repurposed for bringing about a new Bronze Age:
…Women, after all, can still, even in the most debased condition, be made to call on their deep passions by a great leader. They voted for Hitler, Mussolini, and many others, with some enthusiasm. The enemy who “freed” them has made use of a great weapon: he has increased his power immensely and introduced a war into the house and life of every man. But this enemy also made a gamble and I believe, ultimately, a mistake…because women more than others will set their bodies on fire with passion for a savior and be willing to abandon the fear and love of comfort on which the modern state depends…them more than others, out of a wild and stupid enthusiasm.It is in this that the true magic of Bronze Age Mindset is revealed. Bronze Age Pervert deftly avoids falling into the pit of political writing through wit, perspective, and comedy. In this, his closest literary analogue can be found in Jonathan Bowden, a British writer who served as a major influence on modern dissident culture.
Early in his career, Bowden published Mad and Sade, two books that are superficially similar to Bronze Age Mindset, featuring unusual spelling, constant shifts in subject matter, and run-on paragraphs, yet still forming a cohesive whole. Mad was a lament against the state of the modern world and is the lesser of the two works, while Sade was a study of the life of the Marquis de Sade, who Bowden argued was one of the most influential figures of modern civilization.
The Marquis de Sade was the polar opposite of BAP’s “Bronze Age pirate.” He was a man who lived not for glory, honor, or country, but to sate his unending material lusts. Feminists like Andrea Dworkin who excoriated Sade for his “misogyny” ignored the fact that by late 1700’s standards, he was a feminist, seeking to liberate women from patriarchal bonds so they could better indulge his sexual fantasies. Despite being of noble blood, he disclaimed his aristocratic titles following the French Revolution so that he could join in the regicide. Sade was the original bugman, focused entirely on amusing himself in the moment and demanding that society aid him in this goal.
The French Revolution was the event that begat our modern, sterilized world. From the legalization of homosexuality to the emancipation of women to the division of politics into left and right wings, our modern society was planted in the poisoned earth bequeathed by the burning of the Bastille. The Marquis de Sade represented the inevitable conclusion of that revolution against God, the king, and tradition: a man who sought nothing but pleasure, unrestrained by law, morality, or familial bonds. “Veal wrapped in cotton,” as Common Filth put it.
No wonder Sade was killed by his fellow revolutionaries: he was a living, breathing Dorian Grey portrait of the Jacobins. Or, as Heath Ledger’s Joker might put it, Sade wasn’t a monster: he was just ahead of the curve.
Bowden’s monograph on Sade serves a purpose not unlike Bronze Age Mindset: a full-throated cry against the lies of the modern world. Sade is purely reactive, showing how Sade was the id of the Enlightenment, unshackled by the Revolution and set loose on the catamites and whores of France; Bronze Age Mindset is proactive, showing what life was like before managerialism turned men into housecats, back during the age of the pirate.
The “Bronze Age pirate” that BAP describes is not simply a hedonistic freebooter: he is a man with a mission, a man who seeks to leave a legacy, a man who refuses to be caged. Nor is he an onanistic self-improver in the mold of Norman Vincent Peale, but a hero who sees his mind and body as inseparable halves of a whole. The Bronze Age pirate seeks to transcend the limitations of his surroundings and make a name for himself, guided by his moral code, his tribal loyalties, and his force of will.
Bronze Age Mindset doesn’t have solutions for the problems of modern society. While Bronze Age Pervert offers some practical advice for young men, the book as a whole doesn’t bill itself as a roadmap to escaping modernity. It doesn’t need to. Bronze Age Mindset is a thunderclap in printed form, a reminder of humanity’s origin and purpose, where it has come from and what it can become. Bronze Age Pervert’s street preacher-esque tone and garbled prose sell these idea far better than any history book or documentary could.
One wonders how much longer Bronze Age Mindset will be available for sale. With Amazon and other book distributors now pulling popular un-PC titles, I can’t imagine that BAP’s runaway success will go unnoticed. It’s something I’m thinking about as I lay the preparations for Terror House Press. With that in mind, you should read Bronze Age Mindset before doing so becomes illegal.
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