Be it the youth, urban professionals, social media moderators and universities, the humble novel has certainly tried to examine and embrace the online/real life brain rot that has slowly engulfed us all for the past 15 years but very few writers have been able to depict it so succinctly.
With discussions around how the internet has rewired the dating/sex/relationship landscape, it makes sense for a writer like Tony Tulathimutte to tackle such issues. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work.
Beginning life as an acclaimed short story called ‘The Feminist’ (immediately you can see where this is going), the first chapter is about a right on male feminist whose lack of success with women leads him down the obligatory “red pill” path. So far, so predictable.
But Christopher, I hear you say, surely the writing would allow for a subtle and nuanced look at such a character?
Here’s a segment from page 2:
The women he tries to date offer him friendship instead, so once again, most of his friends are women. This is fine: it's their prerogative, and anyway, lots of relationships begin platonically—especially for guys with narrow shoulders. But soon a pattern emerges. The first time, as he is leaving his friend's dorm room, he surprises himself by saying: Hey, this might be super random, and she can totally say no, but he's attracted to her, so did she want to go on a "date" date, sometime? In a casual and normal voice. And she says, "Oh," and filibusters—she had no idea he felt that way, and she doesn't want to risk spoiling the good thing they have by making it a thing, she thinks it'll be best if they just stay . . . and he rushes to assure her that it's valid, no, totally valid, he knows friendship isn't a downgrade, sorry for being weird. Ugh!
Yes, that is an excerpt. I know, it reads like a third-rate Reddit parody.
Hang on, it gets worse.
Dragging his virginity like a body bag into his midtwenties, he watches a certain amount of dom-oriented porn, probably due to internalized sexism, but he’s read that porn is a safe, healthy venue to explore kink, that sexuality is neither a choice nor shameful, especially if the studios follow good labor and aftercare practices. His female friends agree, though he does not mention that he seeks out actresses that look like them, which he deems acceptable as long as he consumes it critically, demarcating fantasy from reality. He’s more worried about physical desensitization: he doesn’t use lubrication, because his roommates would overhear it. He comes to prefer the intensity of this “dry” method, but feels the friction is somehow eroding his psyche, and possibly dulling his penis nerves. He resolves to masturbate with a condom to wean himself. He wonders in what other ways touch, or the lack of it, has warped him. He’s read about that study of baby monkeys who were denied soft physical contact and grew up disturbed and sickly. It’s hard for him to believe chastity was ever associated with purity, when it feels like putrescence, his blood browning and saliva clouding with pus, each passing day rendering him more leprously foul to the senses. What about those venerable virgo intacta like Kant, Dickinson, Newton? Their virginity was a matter of will. They believed God loved them for it.
The voice of frustrated youth, eh?
As the novel progresses, we are introduced to the following stereotypes who (alongside the male feminist) are linked through various interactions:
🕮 A lonely young woman
🕮 A deeply repressed gay man
🕮 A self-obsessed work bro
🕮 An agender internet troll
Fascinating stuff
Unsurprisingly, at its core, the book is an earnest read. Rip away the faux detachment, the humour, the sexual masochism and what you see is a writer trying to negotiate what it means to be a confused and sexually frustrated misfit in 21st century America. While that’s an admirable ambition, Tulathimutte’s writing simply does not allow any chance for nuance or piercing insights into his characters. They are merely two-dimensional types who believe being repressed is their identity.
On top of that, the two main heterosexual male characters (the male feminist and an Andrew Tate/Elon Musk hybrid) are even worse: one is a snivelling wretch, and the other is a bland sociopath. It’s clear that Tulathimutte has no empathy or sympathy for them but does for the other non-straight white male characters. While it’s not necessary to have sympathetic villains, the fact that they are so over the top in their depiction negates the more sympathetic portrayals of the other characters.
Discussing 2022’s Fuccboi, Ann Manov’s description of it fits Rejection: A Novel like a glove in that it
…accurately represent the cretinous depravity of the Millennial generation, as well as the self-aggrandising cult of martyrdom — increasingly by self-diagnosed mental or physical illness — with which my generation shirks the responsibilities historically incumbent upon the civilised mind…They are averse to or incapable of subjectivity and depth. What little allowance is made for human feeling is exclusively of pharmaceutical origin. These are not works of art; they are simply unremarkable descriptions of unremarkable lives. In the glib generational determinism so popular today, one excuses this shallowness of character and failure to depict any interpersonal conflict as a “real” and “relatable” mirror of the “autism” of the young generation…However, these writers, and the thinly disguised stand-ins that populate their autofiction, are not autistic. They are merely permanent adolescents, incapable of empathising with any experience outside of their own and comfortably withdrawn into a profound egotism.
Just say no to Rejection: A Novel.
Tony Tulathimutte, 2025, Rejection: A Novel. 4th Estate. ISBN-13:
978-0008759414
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.
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