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Fired
A modern burlesque epic
A gently anarchic oddbod loses a succession of jobs while slowly being drawn into an epic battle between the forces of good and evil.
Fired is a burlesque epic set in a world out of joint. It is a heroic journey of self-discovery, a study of contemporary minds at the end of their tether, a salt-in-the-eye satire of the dystopian modern world, a heartbreaking outpouring of grief for the condition of creatures in existence and a good old fashioned supernatural love-story.
From Darren Allen
A brilliant communicator; Russell Brand
A follower of love, empathy and creativity; Alain de Botton
…made me laugh, drew me in, [bent me] stupid; Chris Morris
One of our most vital contemporary essayists; Irvine Welsh
A very funny, brilliantly talented and seriously disturbed writer; Terry Gilliam
A gently anarchic oddbod loses a succession of jobs while slowly being drawn into an epic battle between the forces of good and evil.
Fired is a burlesque epic set in a world out of joint. It is a heroic journey of self-discovery, a study of contemporary minds at the end of their tether, a salt-in-the-eye satire of the dystopian modern world, a heartbreaking outpouring of grief for the condition of creatures in existence and a good old fashioned supernatural love-story.
From Darren Allen
A brilliant communicator; Russell Brand
A follower of love, empathy and creativity; Alain de Botton
…made me laugh, drew me in, [bent me] stupid; Chris Morris
One of our most vital contemporary essayists; Irvine Welsh
A very funny, brilliantly talented and seriously disturbed writer; Terry Gilliam
640 pages, Paperback
Published December 10, 2022
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December 21, 2022
Fired by Darren Allen
Love is the greatest thing.
The oldest yet the latest thing…
Love is a song without end
As Al Bowlly’s voice rang out from gramophones across England, F/ Lt Raymond Douglas arrived in Iraq at the invitation of HMG
As the song played, Feix Arao shot an orang-utan in Borneo,
As the melody faded, Al Bowly died from a bomb-blast in London 1941
The technique of describing what various people were doing while someone unconnected sings is used effectively by the author on several occasions, stressing the role he gives to song in his rich depiction of human behaviour. His word-pictures make demands on the reader, too, but are effective, often very challenging , since he is not afraid to offer a surreal ,Hieronymus Bosch style image of situations. The tableaux contents, in fact, are largely fantastic, not often humorous in the “normal” sense, but not “black”, either.
Allen offers us a fascinating range of characters, from the sort of “anti-hero”, Joe Geb to the witch, Chiyo, who is somewhat extremely exotic, especially compared with the majority of the true Brit residents of the ultra-ordinary town which is the book’s setting. True, other leading contributors to the song without end are Welsh, Indian or – perhaps the prime mover of the story, the composer/performer, Victor- part West Indian.
Though, or perhaps because so ordinary, many of the characters are afflicted. They don’t seem to dare look into themselves to try to find the origin of their unhappiness, but that, of course, is part of their miserable syndrome. There is some gradation of misery and unawareness, which is how Joe is the least afflicted, until… well, read the book to find out. There is certainly suspense in the story, keeping this reader, normally [?] allergic to 600+ pages alert and intrigued. Mr Allen is not just imaginative and wise in criss-crossing destinies, but quite remarkably compassionate, imho. For example, one of the most consistently repulsive of these folk, Neil Geb, is, you may think, incredibly disgusting in his attitude, hateful and, above all, a total control-freak. Almost total, as his eventual redemption is not a complete surprise, or was not, to me at least.
I would count this achievement – of never writing off one’s fellow creatures- as an endearing aspect of the novel. Mr Allen writes with eloquence and insight but never morbidly on death, the leading female-person, Lilly, being a mortician . Not that she had intended to take up that work, but, like other young people in the desolate town of Edding [could that be Reading ?]
she found mostly pointless “jobs”, mainly “temping” despite her qualifications. The theme of “zero-hours” etc sets the scene for the story [“Fired!” as the telly twits shout, like dragons] and concerns [well, doesn’t concern, really] Joe and eventually his wife. Are the drifters the losers, Allen asks us, or are we conventional careerists the sad ones? After the hilarious, farcical episode at the railway ticket office which leads to Joe’s first sacking, the interview at the Job Centre is tragicomic; and, while the no-hoper atmosphere of the first few parts becomes bleaker, there are patches of fun, more than a few if you like surreal things.
So [as Hunter, young entrepreneur, would say] we can say that the author succeeds in offering readers entertainment, alongside substantial challenges to our spiritual ease-naught for your comfort, as Chesterton remarked.
The level of language is also at times a challenge- obviously if you don’t like rough words, but also in the use of, say, “ekpyrotic”, a recent *coinage, and “ichor” [check the two divergent meanings of this word] but this is useful both for the story and for our general power of expression.
There are hundreds of attractive phrases here – “hearts made of little more than scar tissue” is perhaps my favourite, including, naturally , metaphors and symbols, with considerable and well- placed sets of, concrete things, especially flowers. I also liked the three instances where a fly intrudes. Perhaps an allusion to Camus ‘s The Plague [il y a toujours une mouche qui vole]
Fired is a magnificent work, imho on a level with Joyce’s Ulysses, provocative yet, finally, gentle. One need not be depressed or too sad at the terrible state of “the world”,but as Joe says,”a little disappointed” and we can turn to the god of small things.
Two last points: in that there is a “bad guy”, we have the Overlord, Max, aristocrat and conscienceless manipulator of women and workers, in his own way robotic and megalomaniac, virtually a zombie, who survives cremation ! Infinitely more horrible as a human being than the petty, pathetic Neil, for example. Joe being, in contrast, in low key, possibly the essential counterpart to Max is Victor, song-writer.
My second point has to be the astounding skill with which, I consider, Mr Allen deals with sex and , notably, good old-fashioned hetero stuff. This is a revelation in times when any whiff of what was “normalcy” [a highly loaded word, but ought not be, in proper usage] tends to
be condemned as reactionary. Allen sticks by the classic distinction [the French have a phrase for it] between masculine “order” and feminine “chaos” ;he refers at one stage to the “re-enchanting” of the world, something the expert on witchery, Silvia Federici has devoted a book to, and probably the last great hope for humankind .
Joe’s wife, Maria, has slipped into the unsuitable , mock-masculine mode of numerous women today, and she quite fairly blames Joe for his exaggerated indifference [?] to her underlying wish for complementarity, that is, a clear gender identity-role for each partner, where no question of dominance can arise- “You are a wild thing/ You make my heart sing “
All this a largely poetic look at the inadequacy of stoic approaches to life and death. T(hese rely on obedience and hierarchy, which, in practice, means bullying [cf. Neil “I was born police!”]
*Mr Allen has possibly seen that “permacrisis” is the new word for2022 in one major dictionary – God help us !
Love is the greatest thing.
The oldest yet the latest thing…
Love is a song without end
As Al Bowlly’s voice rang out from gramophones across England, F/ Lt Raymond Douglas arrived in Iraq at the invitation of HMG
As the song played, Feix Arao shot an orang-utan in Borneo,
As the melody faded, Al Bowly died from a bomb-blast in London 1941
The technique of describing what various people were doing while someone unconnected sings is used effectively by the author on several occasions, stressing the role he gives to song in his rich depiction of human behaviour. His word-pictures make demands on the reader, too, but are effective, often very challenging , since he is not afraid to offer a surreal ,Hieronymus Bosch style image of situations. The tableaux contents, in fact, are largely fantastic, not often humorous in the “normal” sense, but not “black”, either.
Allen offers us a fascinating range of characters, from the sort of “anti-hero”, Joe Geb to the witch, Chiyo, who is somewhat extremely exotic, especially compared with the majority of the true Brit residents of the ultra-ordinary town which is the book’s setting. True, other leading contributors to the song without end are Welsh, Indian or – perhaps the prime mover of the story, the composer/performer, Victor- part West Indian.
Though, or perhaps because so ordinary, many of the characters are afflicted. They don’t seem to dare look into themselves to try to find the origin of their unhappiness, but that, of course, is part of their miserable syndrome. There is some gradation of misery and unawareness, which is how Joe is the least afflicted, until… well, read the book to find out. There is certainly suspense in the story, keeping this reader, normally [?] allergic to 600+ pages alert and intrigued. Mr Allen is not just imaginative and wise in criss-crossing destinies, but quite remarkably compassionate, imho. For example, one of the most consistently repulsive of these folk, Neil Geb, is, you may think, incredibly disgusting in his attitude, hateful and, above all, a total control-freak. Almost total, as his eventual redemption is not a complete surprise, or was not, to me at least.
I would count this achievement – of never writing off one’s fellow creatures- as an endearing aspect of the novel. Mr Allen writes with eloquence and insight but never morbidly on death, the leading female-person, Lilly, being a mortician . Not that she had intended to take up that work, but, like other young people in the desolate town of Edding [could that be Reading ?]
she found mostly pointless “jobs”, mainly “temping” despite her qualifications. The theme of “zero-hours” etc sets the scene for the story [“Fired!” as the telly twits shout, like dragons] and concerns [well, doesn’t concern, really] Joe and eventually his wife. Are the drifters the losers, Allen asks us, or are we conventional careerists the sad ones? After the hilarious, farcical episode at the railway ticket office which leads to Joe’s first sacking, the interview at the Job Centre is tragicomic; and, while the no-hoper atmosphere of the first few parts becomes bleaker, there are patches of fun, more than a few if you like surreal things.
So [as Hunter, young entrepreneur, would say] we can say that the author succeeds in offering readers entertainment, alongside substantial challenges to our spiritual ease-naught for your comfort, as Chesterton remarked.
The level of language is also at times a challenge- obviously if you don’t like rough words, but also in the use of, say, “ekpyrotic”, a recent *coinage, and “ichor” [check the two divergent meanings of this word] but this is useful both for the story and for our general power of expression.
There are hundreds of attractive phrases here – “hearts made of little more than scar tissue” is perhaps my favourite, including, naturally , metaphors and symbols, with considerable and well- placed sets of, concrete things, especially flowers. I also liked the three instances where a fly intrudes. Perhaps an allusion to Camus ‘s The Plague [il y a toujours une mouche qui vole]
Fired is a magnificent work, imho on a level with Joyce’s Ulysses, provocative yet, finally, gentle. One need not be depressed or too sad at the terrible state of “the world”,but as Joe says,”a little disappointed” and we can turn to the god of small things.
Two last points: in that there is a “bad guy”, we have the Overlord, Max, aristocrat and conscienceless manipulator of women and workers, in his own way robotic and megalomaniac, virtually a zombie, who survives cremation ! Infinitely more horrible as a human being than the petty, pathetic Neil, for example. Joe being, in contrast, in low key, possibly the essential counterpart to Max is Victor, song-writer.
My second point has to be the astounding skill with which, I consider, Mr Allen deals with sex and , notably, good old-fashioned hetero stuff. This is a revelation in times when any whiff of what was “normalcy” [a highly loaded word, but ought not be, in proper usage] tends to
be condemned as reactionary. Allen sticks by the classic distinction [the French have a phrase for it] between masculine “order” and feminine “chaos” ;he refers at one stage to the “re-enchanting” of the world, something the expert on witchery, Silvia Federici has devoted a book to, and probably the last great hope for humankind .
Joe’s wife, Maria, has slipped into the unsuitable , mock-masculine mode of numerous women today, and she quite fairly blames Joe for his exaggerated indifference [?] to her underlying wish for complementarity, that is, a clear gender identity-role for each partner, where no question of dominance can arise- “You are a wild thing/ You make my heart sing “
All this a largely poetic look at the inadequacy of stoic approaches to life and death. T(hese rely on obedience and hierarchy, which, in practice, means bullying [cf. Neil “I was born police!”]
*Mr Allen has possibly seen that “permacrisis” is the new word for2022 in one major dictionary – God help us !
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