Incel by ARX-Han: A Review
Incel God-mode
Buy the book. No spoilers ahead. All the pulled quotes are from the text.
Incels
What’s missing from every story is the exact same thing. It’s the genes.
I do not have to tell you what an Incel is. Everybody knows at least one Incel. Many have one in their own families. The average guy likely has had a periodic bout of incelibatism in their lives.
Beside from the brilliance of the novel - which we will get to, the sheer size of the ‘male-virgin demographic’ across multiple countries and the sad reality of their situation, is why this book is a must read. And not just for cultural commentators, fiction critics, and social scientists, but for those parents and family members who are struggling to understand what is going on.
For context, here are some statistics from around the world (male virginity is far more normal than we like to think, and remember, all these numbers are likely higher - young men in particular do not want to admit their virginity status):
48.5% of young men in the U.S. aged 15-19 are virgins.
In 2018, 23% of men aged 25-29 reported being virgins.
In Japan, 1 in 10 men in their 30s are virgins.
Approximately 10% of men in China in their late 20s are virgins.
Virginity among young men in South Korea has increased from 8.6% to 16.1% in a decade.
In India, 38% of men aged 20-24 have never had sex.
16% of men in their early 30s in Sweden are virgins.
19% of men in Poland aged 25-29 have never engaged in sexual activity.
25.4% of young men aged 15-24 in Brazil are virgins.
30% of men in Vietnam in their early 30s are still virgins.
In Malaysia, 25% of men aged 25-29 have never had sex.
Incels are all across the world, in every country. And while their specific experiences may be modulated by their countries’ culture, the central problem for each of them is the same: Reproductive fitness. And it is this fact which
hones in on. The novel follows a young man studying post-graduate evolutionary psychology. His one goal, getting laid. His name only, “Anon”.Evolutionary Theory
By definition, memetic propagators like Rachel lack the capacity for true agency and moral responsibility.
If you are interested in evolutionary theory, sociology, biology, or psychology in general, and love a rogue concept, this novel is an indulgent treat. Check out this crass but fascinating paragraph:
Although fighting and fucking are fundamentally distinct biological activities, the reason you love violence is the reason you love pornography: This process of observation and simulation has the effect of superimposing your body onto the body of the other, yielding the same dopaminergic reward as if the external body was in fact your very own. Thus, the tendency of all narrative forms is to evolve into the natural structure of a power fantasy: When you imagine yourself as the man in the arena, you always win the most important fights and always fuck the most important girls.
As a PhD student studying psychology, who is also training to become a clinical psychologist, I could not believe what I was reading. Many of the theories propagated in the novel I had discussed at some time with my friends who are also post-graduate psychology students.
But as you may have intuited even before I quoted that sequence, ARX-Han’s dedication to realism with the crassness of the language chosen and scenes described, combined with the hyper-intellectual ‘thinks he’s not an autist’ internal-monologue of Anon, means my suggestion that the broader public should read this is nonsense, really. It is for a certain type of person, I am not going to lie. But that’s why its great. ARX-Han did not compromise.
Honestly, I do not think I am exaggerating, it goes: American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis, Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk, and Incel, ARX-Han.
Cool it with the anti-Semitic remarks.
The author references both novels, to my memory, several times. I’ve read them, too, and the effect on me reading Incel was similar - though each commented on a slightly different aspect of the modern male condition:
Superficiality of money-bros (American Psycho);
Male comradery in violence (Fight Club); and,
What happens at the bottom of male sexual hierarchies (Incel).
They should be read in a triumvirate. (Maybe after Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky?)
The Internet
What I most like about the internet - well, what everyone likes about the internet, I suppose - is knowing you are not alone in your suffering.
Anon only has one real friend, a tall, menacing, kick-boxing Korean called Jason, whose best skill beside from knocking people out is picking up girls. As a result, Anon spends a lot of time online, especially browsing Reddit, and him and Jason frequently discuss the rogue theories they have found in cyber-space.
(I wonder if Jason plays a similar role to ARX-Han as Tyler Durden does to Chuck Palahniuk in Fight Club, where the mirror of the narrator is a idealised version of what the author wants to become).
Probably my favourite scene in the book is an argument Anon has with another user on a Reddit thread. I will not spoil it for you, but it is a crystallization and triangulation of primary themes in the book, Reductionist Evolutionary Theories, the Internet, and Masculine Competition. It also is one of the many scenes where ARX-Han’s incredible and fearless wit shines through: This novel is darkly funny.
I’ll quote a paragraph from a different online scene so you can get a taste:
In response to SwordofThor’s rather convoluted provocations, a user named AWFUL Holocaust comments God Forbid The Jews And The Chinese Ever Team Up And Form Some Kind of Godless Pan-Racial Voltron, Like A Terracotta Army Of Zuckerberg-Chans Assembling Into A Very Large Transformer-Like Mecha With A Proportionally-Small Penis. Lord Knows It Would Be The End Of The White Race. In response to this response a user name HANSUPREMECY tells him to COOL IT WITH THE ANTI-SEMITIC REMARKS.
This is not a polite book. But, if you find any of that funny - this novel’s for you.
Incel is set in 2012. Anon and Jason were the millennials at the crest of the cyber-wave, some of the first to use the modern forums and social media so many of us now call home. ARX-Han shows how underground and subversive theories were shared and debated, that today are taken for granted - because this has become the primary way for everything to be shared and debated.
I am 32 now, and would have been a similar age to Anon in 2012, though I guess I was the opposite of an Incel in almost every way. But, I do remember 2012 intimately - it was the year when parents started getting Facebook … and it was the weirdest thing ever, knowing they were perusing all of your racist, misogynist, and childish 16 years of age humour that you had once believed only your closest bros would ever see. Gen Z never experienced this, they grew up knowing not to post this nonsense next to their real name online. While Gen Z overall has it worse, this one phenomenon is deeply millennial.
Criticisms
There aren’t many, honestly. If this novel is understood as what it is: A subversive literary piece of art, that is internally consistent in terms of style and aim, then I am somewhat manufacturing criticisms, likely out of my indifferent to sometimes downright hostile view of literary fiction in general. I debated whether to actually include these as a result, but I do believe them, and as ARX-Han himself said in post recently:
While critics should take into account what the novel is trying to achieve, and whether the author is experienced or not, the Western cultural tradition will not regenerate if we are going to ‘incestuously back-scratch’. If something sucks, you should probably say it. I mentioned some of the same issues in a post last-year, among a lot else:
Anyway, here are my two criticisms I have somewhat manufactured:
Jason’s character.
Although I loved parts of Jason, I sometimes struggled with the believability of his character. On the one hand, I know Koreans can be hyper-aggressive and have a powerful warrior culture - that I did not have a problem with (I knew several Koreans at school that would bring baseball bats to fist-fights - they always took it too far, just like Jason). However, given his likely lower intelligence (and brain-damage) his ability to discuss and debate these theories with Anon was overplayed - I felt. Their intellectual discussions could have been done in a different manner, with Anon pontificating down to Jason to sell the difference between them intellectually better (or I could have just missed it). If you have read it, let me know what you think. Maybe I am too harsh.
Too much introspection/monologue.
ARX-Han’s construction of an original internal-monologue is masterful. The first note I wrote after I started reading was:
Love the ‘creative-academic-based’ prose.
That’s kind of what it is: It’s really creative, it has an academic starting point that has been twisted seductively, and it is incredibly based. It positively assaults me on three vectors.
A reviewer on the back of the book said:
Brilliant in its technical detail, linguistic flexibility …
And another:
… very nimble prose.
I would definitely agree. However, by the 200th page, a two thirds of the way through, I started to feel a bit drained by it, overloaded. I know Anon is supposed to be autistic-adjacent, but I started to wonder: What if this book was cut down to say … 250 pages, 200 even? If some of the monologue is … tightened? Would it flow better? Would I not experience that same drain? Again, this is a little harsh, but it’s what I thought.
Buy The Book
I will save my entire rant for a later time (or you could just read my Micropatron post), but it frustrates me when people bitch and moan about the state of Western art, when they never get up off their ass and buy A REAL LIFE ALBUM OFF BANDCAMP, OR BUY A NOVEL BY SOME TALENTED SUBSTACKER, OR TRY TO CROWDFUND A FILM PROJECT.
Sorry for shouting, but the desire to ‘keep a few bucks’ over the regeneration of the Western cultural tradition sounds insane to me. If everybody thinks like that, well - we’re screwed.
Incel by ARX-Han should, in my view, become a cultural force - it should be read widely, it should be a requirement for Dissident Book Clubs, and maybe even a film should be based on it.
If what you have read here sounds intriguing to you, consider supporting the bro
, he’s produced a beautiful - if at times disturbing - piece of art.Buy the book.
Thank you all for reading!
If you enjoyed this, please consider giving it a like, or if you have some thoughts, share them in the comments.
Even better, click this button…
If you want to support me further, and help me realise my dream of becoming an independent writer and voice, you can upgrade to a paid subscription or you can simply give me a tip.
Chur, and have a good day and night,
The Delinquent Academic
Thank you for taking the time to read and consider the book as carefully as you have. It's a privilege to have your work read closely by others. Your feedback is well taken as well - while I leaned into maximalism with this book, my next novel will likely be more stripped down.
A lot to chew on here - I'll be adding it to my list of reviews at https://www.decentralizedfiction.com/p/incel-a-novel!
Intriguing write-up.