Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and I was a young child (so mid 1990’s), my parents and I went on vacation to Las Vegas. We stayed in the MGM Grand, where one night/early morning (it was like 3 A.M.) I was woken up by my mother hysterically laughing. When I asked her what was so funny, she told me she was reading one of the funniest books she ever read, Good Omens. Curious, I picked it up the next day, read a page and a half, and put it down. This happened the next two times I tried to read the book. I have no idea why, other than maybe I just wasn’t in the right mindset at the time. Well, the stars aligned one day, because I picked it up and did not put it down until I finished it. Where I promptly re-read it; in fact, next to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings (which I’m counting as one book), and a book by Bruce Coville called The Dragonslayers (what do you want? The main character was a redhead who hated wearing dresses and wanted to swing a sword around; I was hooked) Good Omens has to be the book I have re-read the most in my life. Oh, if only my mother knew what she was unleashing that fateful day.
I love a book where the main plot boils down to “Demon gets told he’s to deliver the AntiChrist and kick-start the slow march to Armageddon. He does this, but realizes he a) loves Earth, b) hates Hell, and c) does not want his life to change overly much, so he gets into contact with his counterpart; a hedonistic Angel who, has much as he says he wants Armageddon, is rather too fond of the cushy number he has going on to want change that much.
Aziraphale. The Enemy, of course. But an enemy for six thousand years now, which made him a sort of friend.
So they decide they will get involved in the AntiChrist’s life and make sure he changes his mind over the end of the world. Too bad they’re as great at that as they are at their regular jobs; because the AntiChrist is in the wind, Armageddon is coming, and they have no plan what to do….”
That does not sum up one-tenth of the humor of the book, but it’s a great place to start off. I will say that you should probably have a passing knowledge of the plot of The Omen before reading this book, as well as a decent-ish knowledge of Christian theology; you can enjoy the book without either, but more of the jokes will make sense if you do. Also apparently a book series from the 1920’s called “The William Jones” books which are available online as an audiobook. Or that’s at least where Gaiman said he got the original idea from, before he sent it to Pratchett and Pratchett ran with it; in my humble opinion, this book reads far more like a Pratchett book than a Gaiman, but that could be because the only Gaiman I’ve ever liked is The Sandman series.
The characters are a large part of the appeal; even the ethereal occult what-have-you amongst them act oh so human.
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. And electricity, of course. One of them had written it, hadn’t he…”Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.
Crowley (the Demon, tempter of Eve, Angel who did not Fall so much as Saunter Vaguely Downwards), is the personification of “utter goofball who thinks he is so cool”; his main sources of evil deeds are gluing coins to the sidewalk, taking out phone lines, and inventing the M25; having never been to London, I’m not 100% sure how evil this is. He drives a 1933 (1926 in the book, but it’s been admitted the ’33 is what they were going for) Bentley that never needs petrol except for the one time Crowley bought some so as to get the 1967 You Only Live Twice bullet hole windscreen decals, and turns any tape left in the car for longer than two weeks into The Best of Queen. He’s playing the part of cool human, yet has his phone number on a telemarketing list and obsess over reruns of The Golden Girls, and I love him.
Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
Aziraphale (Angel, Principality, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Part-Time Rare Book Dealer) is one of the most frumpy, hedonistic people you’ll ever read about outside of Bilbo Baggins. He collects misprinted Bibles and books of prophecy, he has the strangest and most unwelcoming opening hours ever seen, and Crowley tempts him into averting the Apocalypse by pointing out there will be no dining at The Ritz if Heaven wins, but there will be mandatory enjoyment of The Sound of Music. He files his taxes so honestly he’s been audited every year because they believe he’s attempting to get away with (literal) murder, and he makes the mobsters who attempt to cajole him out of his shop disappear to never be seen again. He knows the proper place and time to throw in a good profanity. Trust me, when Aziraphale says Crowley has a spark of goodness in him, and Crowley responds that deep down Aziraphale was enough of a bas**rd to be worth liking, they both truly mean it. (Plus, I am firmly convinced that in the book they’ve been dating if not married for years, but that is open to people’s interpretation).
Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours – he was incredibly good at it.
Adam (AntiChrist) has the face of an angel and the clothing sense of an average child. He names his Hellhound “Dog”, because it’s just easier, and has it look like a Wishbone homage. He has a gang, one of which is a young androgynous girl by the name of Pippin Galadriel Moonchild, aka “Pepper”, who I love because she is a ginger who is described as “one large freckle with occasional patches of skin”. (They change her for the TV series; I am all for representation, as it matters, but could they not have picked someone other than the freckled ginger? We’re dying out as a group, we literally are.) Plus, Pepper goes down in history as the child who thwarts things by asking a rather reasonable question. They have the Spanish Inquisition, which they want to make English over time. These children (Adam, Pepper, Wensleydale, and Brian) act and sound like normal children, which is wonderful and makes them all the more charming, even if Adam’s idea of Armageddon can be boiled down to “Let Kids Rule the Land” on The Broadway Kids Sing Broadway.
There are overly chatty Satanic nuns who aren’t very good at their calling, a professional descendant (who to this day I have never gotten an answer on why her eyes are listed as brown on one page and green on another; seeing as one author is not communicative, I’m thinking to get an answer I may have to pull out a Ouija board…), a medium/phone sex operator/dominatrix/call girl, a Witchfinder that survives on Guinness, liver and onions, condensed milk, cigarettes, malice, and extreme bigotry towards anyone who isn’t him. Even if you won’t like all the characters, you have to say that they are all rather distinct.
If you’ve ever read a Terry Pratchett book, then you know what you should expect going in. The humor makes you think, the social asides are spot on; Madame Tracy, Aziraphale and Beryl’s interaction during the seance (ambulance included) is just a delight. Aziraphale in the televangelist, in my opinion, not only points out the problem with the Rapture as a concept as a whole, but also shows you truly where Aziraphale is in terms of Heaven. Though that is on par with the confrontation on the air base where Aziraphale asks a simple question, and Aziraphale and Crowley remind me of the beginning of “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd.
If you get my driftWhen you get it, if you get itAh…Good you got it
It’s stated that Angels and Demons dancing is like a white band on Soul Train, or a British group on Eurovision, depending on what edition you have. (I discovered this upon reading the illustrated edition, which is published in England, rather than the US edition I usually read. That was an eye-opener, let me tell you.)
Hell may have all the best composers, but heaven has all the best choreographers.
Never mind when Adam gets a hold of Beelzebub and the Metatron; seeing as AntiChrist isn’t working out, I might suggest a career in Law for the arguing; I’d suggest Politics, but isn’t that just so done?
If you’ve only seen the Amazon series, I would definitely read the book; the series is as good in some ways, worse in others, and better in a few (more Aziraphale/Crowley, better Beelzebub, the addition of Gabriel, God’s voiceover, the trials, and Aziraphale in Heaven…and that’s about it.)
Some quotes I like (can’t do all of them; that would be reprinting 3/4 of the book, and I believe that’s legally frowned upon):
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DON’T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.
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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.
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Anyway, if you stop tellin’ people it’s all sorted out afer they’re dead, they might try sorting it all out while they’re alive.
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The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do.
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25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying ‘Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?’26 And the Angel said, ‘I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.’27 And the Lord did not ask him again.
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You’re Hell’s Angels, then? What chapter are you from?”REVELATIONS. CHAPTER SIX.
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Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.
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You don’t have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right.
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It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.
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And the rest of the time you simply got on with life as best you could, just like everyone else.