Seduction Is Dead, Long Live the Incel

My only diagnosis—my incurable, wholly intractable condition—is that I cannot help but see the world as it is, not how I want it to be,” laments Anon, protagonist of ARX-Han’s Incel: A Novel. The book has been quietly making waves since it was self-published in 2023, and for good reason: It is the most incisive exploration of the “radical incel” (involuntarily celibate) worldview yet to appear in fiction. Not only does Han (a pseudonym) succeed in personalizing this culturally reviled perspective; he shows that it isn’t isolated to the involuntarily celibate individual, but is rather a condensed expression of the scientism that suffuses modern society.