[This gallery is a collection of four images of classic cars: one red convertible, a gold car, a green convertible, and a beautiful dark blue Cadillac.]
- Why did I pick this book up?
This is yet another book I have wanted to read for a long time. I am a very big fan of Neil Gaiman’s work, from his novels to his graphic novels, and I also love Terry Pratchett (I played Magrat in a community theatre production of his Wyrd Sisters in highschool). After reading some pretty depressing and frankly not great books, I decided that I would give the funny book by two writers who have proven themselves to me a chance.
- Would I recommend why/why not?
Hell yeah I would recommend this book! If you like funny, irreverent books that will make you laugh on literally every page, this is the book for you! This is not the book for you if you have a genuine fear and belief in the Apocalypse in its Biblical sense, as I guess this could be considered offensive?
I would also recommend it if you want something quasi-fantasy, quasi-sci fi, and completely nutty. If you are a fan of either Gaiman or Pratchett, what are you waiting for?! Read this damn book!
- Quick Synopsis **SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON, DO I EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT?!**:
Basically, this books takes place in the 90s in England. We meet Aziraphale, an angel, and Crowley, a demon. Although they are literally polar opposites, destined to be eternal enemies, we quickly see that they are totally buddies and secret BFFs.
They are told by their respective bosses (God and Satan) that the Apocalypse is near, and that they must begin their efforts to bring it about, as the Antichrist is about to be born.
Crowley and Aziraphale really like their lives on Earth, and don’t really want this to end. They decide to keep an eye on the Antichrist, baby Warlock, in the hopes that they will be able to sabotage the Apocalypse. However, it turns out that due to a comedy of errors, Warlock is not the Antichrist; there was a switch at the hospital, and the baby named Warlock is just a regular baby, while the Antichrist is ironically named Adam and sent to live with a super boring super normal British family, instead of with the American Ambassador (also funny!).
Eleven years pass, and it is now time for the Apocalypse and for the Four Horsemen to ride. Cue hardcore Queen playing.
Basically there is a bunch of silly stuff that goes on with the attempt to locate the Antichrist by Arizaphale and Crowley, as well as a subplot involving a witch hunter and a psychic granddaughter of the psychic that properly predicted the End of Times, Agnes Nutter.
The world descends into chaos as the Four Horsemen, Death, Famine, War, and Pollution (who, in an interesting commentary, replaces Pestilence) meet up and seek out Adam.
In the meantime, Adam wants to rule the world, as any 11 year old boy would. However, he realizes that if the world ends, if he brings it about by accepting his absolute power, he will not be able to hang out with his friends and live his boy life. So he decides to end the Apocalypse. He gets grounded by his dad, Aziraphale and Crowley are happy the world still exists so they can enjoy food and fancy cars, and the psychic feels liberated by no longer living her life according to a set of wacky and hard to decipher prophecies.
Also maybe there will be a second Apocalypse in the future but who knows.
[This is a picture of a black book with three ‘men’ drawn on the front. One is obviously Crowley, and the other Aziraphale, and maybe the third man is the witch hunter? He seems to old to be Adam. “Good Omens” sprawls across the page, and the letter ‘M’ ends in a devil’s tail.]
- Overall brain gushings :
This book was so funny. On every page I found something that made me actually LOL. There was a lot of hilarious and snide commentary on human beings and what makes them tick, as well as a lot of poking fun at the contradictions in religion.
I especially liked all the parts that dealt with Famine and the hilarious commentary on people’s obsession with weight and food.
Also I found it really intriguing to consider that this book was written as a collaboration, and found myself wondering who had written what, how the writing process had unfolded, and just exactly how the book all came together. The work was very seamless and I found it incredibly entertaining and impressive to see the product of this partnership.
Also there were a lot of hilarious passages that show the fallacies of humans, and also the funny ways that kids think.
- What does it mean?
Good Omens has a lot of interesting observations on religion and humanity, and one of my favourites is that humans actually create much more pain and suffering for themselves and each other than demons or angels could ever dream up. Crowley is constantly fascinated at the horrors humans manage to invent.
Good Omens is evidently concerned with ideas of free will and predestination, but it can be hard to say exactly what the book is trying to say about it, as it seems mostly concerned with undermining typical attitudes and perceptions of free will and religion, while infusing everything in the text with an amazing aura of total ridiculousness.
Simultaneously, the book deals with how humans are afraid of the unknown, and yet the character of Anathema Device shows that knowing things can be a burden. In fact, the unknown is the beauty of being alive.
You know what else this book means? I think it means that sometimes reading should just be good entertainment! Here is a book that is well-written and funny, pokes fun at an institution and belief system that has a hold over most people, and maybe that is sort of enough! I don’t have to get a deep insight from this book, because if anything this book demonstrates that some of the deep insight we credit certain texts with (cough Bible cough) are unwarranted, and that stories are exactly that; narratives for entertainment and that allow humans to relate to one another.
- Favourite passages :
Eventually I stopped flagging my favourite passages because I was seriously flagging something on every page. However, I obviously have to include some excerpts, as I think Gaiman and Pratchett’s humour is the most convincing way to get you to read this book!
“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.”
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Crowley had always known that he would be around when the world ended, because he was immortal and wouldn’t have any alternative. But he hoped it was a long way off. Because he rather liked people. It was major failing in a demon. Oh, he did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the design, somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness. There had been times, over the past millennium, when he’d felt like sending a message back Below saying, Look we may as well give up right now, we might as well shut down Dis and Pandemonium and everywhere and move up here, there’s nothing we can do to them that they don’t do to themselves and they do things we’ve never even thought of, often involving electrodes. They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
“If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying ‘THIS IS IT!’? … I mean, why do that if you really don’t want them to eat it, eh? I mean, maybe you just want to see how it all turns out. Maybe it’s all part of a great big ineffable plan. All of it. You, me, him, everything. Some great big test to see if what you’ve built all works properly, eh? You start thinking: it can’t be a great cosmic game of chess, it has to be just very complicated Solitaire.”
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
- If you liked this (or my review), consider reading :
Read anything by Christopher Moore, especially Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal which, as the title gives away, is the untold story of Jesus’ ‘lost’ years. Irreverent towards the Bible and funny af, it has a lot in common with Good Omens.
If you liked this book or my review, also consider reading anyh of Terry Pratchett’s work, particularly his Discworld series.
Stay tuned for my next review Moving, by Jenny Eclair, a tale about a home and the secrets it can hold. Spoiler, I thought this book was dumb and asinine so that’s a fun review to look forward to!
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