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| (Cover Artist: Douglas Smith) |
It's precisely for this reason that Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's 1990 novel Good Omen's works as well as it does. On almost every level, this book in which the biblical apocalypse "goes wrong" due to a very literal clerical error is infused with a simple moral drive that softens the novel's more biting insights. Pratchett and Gaiman do certainly view religion as an endless source of amusement, and there are definitely very few religious denominations who don't end up at least a little scratched by this book's humor. However, behind the "send-up" of the abrahamic myths surrounding the end of the world, there's also a clear admiration for the extensive mythology this novel lampoons.
The plot of Good Omens revolves around two unlikely friends. Aziraphale is an Angel sent from Heaven to promote general goodness and well-being on Earth, while Crowley is a Demon sent from Hell to do the opposite -- a supernatural entity who spends his days devising increasingly elaborate schemes to make people miserable. Effectively stuck on Earth after Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden of Eden, both Aziraphale and Crowley end up gaining a mutual respect for one another in the 6,000 years that follow. Cut off from Heaven, Aziraphale reluctantly comes to incorporate a more pragmatic view of what it means to be "good," while Crowley similarly comes to be "corrupted" by the human nature surrounding him (a process which, due to his original identity as a being of pure evil, means he has no where to go but up).
This changes when at the start of the novel, a modern-day Crowley is finally informed by agents of Hell that the world will end in 11 years, and subsequently entrusted with delivering the Antichrist to a suitable family. Having gradually come to enjoy his time on Earth, Crowley quickly contacts Aziraphale, and the two come up with a scheme to provide the physical manifestation of all evil with exactly the sort of stable, wholesome upbringing that would weaken even the most fervent of desires to end life on Earth. As Crowley smartly points out to Aziraphale, even for supernatural entities, Good and Evil are not immutable traits.
"Look at Satan. Created as an angel, grows up to be the Great Adversary. [...] you might as well say the kid will grow up to be an angel. After all, his father was really big in Heaven in the old days. Saying he'll grow up to be a demon just because his dad became one is like saying a mouse with its tail cut off will give birth to tailless mice. No. Upbringing is everything. Take it from me." (p.52)
It's with this setup that Good Omens sets out on a very scattered and disorienting "comedy of errors," with the forces of Heaven and Hell marshaling themselves for a cataclysmic battle to decide the ultimate nature of existence, while the only two supernatural beings on Earth who care anything about humanity strive to throw a wrench into the incomprehensible machinations of fate. In the ensuing story, both Crowley and Aziraphale do their best to insert themselves covertly into the Antichrist's childhood, taking on the roles of babysitters and distant uncles while they carefully guide this being to maturity. Predictably of course, nothing goes according to plan, and when the day of the apocalypse finally rolls around, Crowley and Aziraphale belatedly discover they've actually lost the real Antichrist, and have spent the last 11 years looking after the wrong boy.
The thing about religious humor is that, in addition to sometimes being too easy, it also has a way of being profound almost without meaning to. Part of the charm that Good Omens holds is in it's quiet implication that in spite of what the biblical cosmology may imply, the true nature of good and evil cannot be embodied in any one person (supernatural or otherwise). From Crowley's exasperated complaints early on that his fellow demons waste too much time tempting individual souls to evil when in fact they should be thinking about the promotion of evil on a broader systematic level, to his and Aziraphale's simple but earnest attempts to teach the child they think is destined to destroy the world how wonderful the place actually is, Good Omens manages to throw together these wonderfully profound moments in almost every other paragraph. This novel sustains itself not just with it's humor, but also with the enthusiasm with which it is willing to interrogate its own subject.
Where Good Omens struggles is in its middle portion. After a wonderfully off-key start, there comes a point midway through the text where Crowley and Aziraphale both must spend about 150 pages researching an ancient book of prophecies about the end of the world -- their only appearance in the story coming via periodic updates describing the rapidly congealing state of the untouched cup of hot chocolate next to Aziraphale as he reads. In order to take up the slack in the narrative, Pratchett and Gaiman use this portion of the book as an opportunity to introduce a whole host of "wacky side characters" who appear one after another in rapid succession. All of these characters are moderately interesting in their own right, but none are given the opportunity to really establish themselves in the plot. There's Adam, who turns out to be the real Antichrist whom Crowley was supposed to look after 11 years prior, and then Anathema Device, a young woman possessing psychic powers which in any other time would have gotten her burned for witchcraft, but who in the modern world just ends up reading too many magazines about paranormal activity and alien abductions. There's also Newt Pusifer, a modern day Witch-hunter who only took the job because it seemed like a good way to meet a potential girlfriend, and of course the four horsemen of the apocalypse, now suitably updated to blend in with the modern world ("Famine" is a celebrity dietitian who publishes a popular series of weight-loss books).
All of these elements would make for a wonderful story in their own right, but jammed together like they are, they only drag the novel down. By the time that Aziraphale and Crowley finally reappear in the text, the narrative has started to feel flat and surprisingly predictable. Adam's journey especially feels all too familiar, with the down-to-earth reactions which this 11-year old boy has to the repeated manifestations of the supernatural powers he doesn't know he has coming across as trite rather than witty. What started out as a wonderful and deceptively profound book ends up becoming tedious, with the core story fading away into an endlessly repeating sequence of misadventures that don't really add up to what they should.
So there's that, and then there's the fact that, at nearly 30 years since its original publication, Good Omens is unfortunately starting to show its age. While the book's discourse regarding religion is surprisingly respectful, there are a few other moments throughout the text that still stand out as problematic. These range from a short scene toward the end of the book where the crew of a Japanese whaling ship are depicted (seemingly comedically) as putting the word "honorable" before everyone's name (p.216), to another moment early on in the novel where Aziraphale's tendency to be overly polite to everyone he meets is signified by the narrator equating him to an "aged retainer welcoming the young massa back to the old plantation." (p.84) While never exactly malicious, these moments are still jarring due to the cognitive dissonance they produce. There's a racially charged edge to the humor which I doubt either of the book's authors would have felt comfortable using were they to rewrite this novel today.
This is not exactly a reason to avoid reading Good Omens, it's just something that prospective readers should be aware of. In most other respects this novel manages to live up to the expectations it establishes in it's early chapters. Good Omens is funny, usually intelligent, and for the most part surprisingly respectful. It lampoons sacred religious texts, but it also then manages to celebrate the core ideals that have animated those same religious traditions for thousands of years. It's a book that takes satire, and finds in it not nihilism, but an innocent, joyful humor.