“Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

 

354 pages, Workman Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-0894808531

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, is a collaborative novel between the English authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The book is a comedy about the birth of the Antichrist and the coming of the End Times, along with the attempts by the angel Aziraphale and the demon Crowley – each of whom have grown to love Planet Earth and (some) of its inhabitants – to sabotage the Apocalypse. A subplot features a mix-up at the small English country hospital on the day of birth and the life of the Antichrist (Adam), who grows up with the wrong family, in the wrong country village and, consequently, basically normal; another, further subplot concerns the summoning of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Death, War (or is it All Foreigners Especially the French?), Famine (Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them a Good Thumping?) and Pollution (Plague having retired after the invention of penicillin). Other subplots abound, too: the writings of the aforementioned Agnes Nutter, the 17^th Century witch who saw all of this going down; the Chattering Order of St. Beryl (those would be Satanic nuns); the Buggre Alle This Bible; and Queen (the band). Sooooo…yeah, there’s a lot going on here.

I bought Good Omens back in the early 90s, not long after it originally came out, from one of my favorite used bookstores, Avalon Books, in suburban Shelby Township, MI (sadly deceased). Now, not being a doctrinaire Christian, I don’t know how much of this book follows the End of Days accurately or not; how much the interpretation of Angels and Demons is blasphemous or no; and all other issues of Christian faith and prophesies and etc. and etc. and etc. What I do know is that, because Gaiman and Pratchett are spoofing Christian beliefs, they were praised and rewarded for doing so (if they had, oh I don’t know, done the same with Muslims, the fatwā would have been issued before the first book came off the presses. Just ask Salman Rushdie).

But, really, what Good Omens is is a lot of silly fun – blasphemous fun, perhaps, but then again we live in the Rational West where that sort of thing is allowed. And, in a strange sorta way, the blasphemy is so hilarious and light-hearted as to be completely inoffensive. No, really, the whole thing is a strange kind of mishmash of classic British wit and American pop culture. While I was familiar with Neil Gaiman from his Sandman line of comics (borrowed from my brother Tom), Terry Pratchett’s work is still unknown to me; whatever I may have been expecting, what with Gaiman’s ultra-serious and off-kilter way of looking at the world, Good Omens completely subverted my view of things, and mostly in a good way.

There’s probably a deeper message hidden underneath all of this Britishness and Americana – like, perhaps Evil isn’t as pervasive and unstoppable as one would think, seeing as the Antichrist himself turned out alright in the end, having been raised by an average English Mum and Dad in the verdant British countryside. Or how British and American culture feeds upon and nourishes each other to such an extraordinary extent. And I still can’t shake the notion that, while I would not classify Good Omens as being ant-Christian, it still has its way with Christian beliefs and ideals because Gaiman and Pratchett know full well that they have nothing to fear from Christians, who would sooner pray for them than do them harm.