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“It is really hard to write good literary satire. Simple fact is that often satire goes too far over to the side of parody. When it crosses that line, it becomes bad mimicry rather than true satire. Think what This Is Spinal Tap would have been like if Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer just did an impression of the guys from Saxon – it would be funny for five minutes (if you actually knew who Saxon was) but ultimately the joke would get old. Over-parody leads to a stale joke and then you have an author who is just winking at his readers. After all, is Rich Little really that funny?
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch could’ve descended into a really bad parody, especially considering that co-authors Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett originally intended it as a send-up of Richard Crompton’s William books (ask your friends from the UK). The initial title they had conceived was William the Antichrist. But Gaiman and Pratchett took the joke farther out -- much farther out -- satirizing everything from the Bible to The Omen to modern English society. The cast of characters includes a sect of extremely loquacious nuns secretly in the employ of hell (The Chattering Order of Saint Beryl), Pollution as the replacement for a now retired Pestilence (thanks to the invention of Penicillin), a bibliophile Angel (known as Aziraphale) who is not so sure he wants heaven to win, a Demon who is more concerned with his antique Bentley than stealing souls, the slacker descendents of Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder, and even Agnes Nutter who lives up to her name. This makes for a concoction that is rife with sharp, pinpointed jokes that still hold up and still retain their bite.
Simply put, it is amazing satire. It the equivalent to reading a Monty Python film and comes as close to matching the sheer genius The Life of Brian as one could get in a novel. In an opening sequence, we’re introduced to Crowley, a demon who has come to enjoy his life on earth and is not particularly enthralled with the idea of Armageddon. The only thing that irks him more is having to show up for the daily counting of the deeds with two other demons at a dreary cemetery at midnight. Never mind the traffic getting out of London, the real frustration for Crowley arises when he cannot explain to his fellow hellspawn that blocking all portable phone systems in central London will do more good for Satan than tempting a politician or a priest.
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“But you couldn’t tell that to demons like Hastur and Ligur. Fourteenth-century minds, the lot of them. Spending years picking away at one soul. Admittedly it was craftsmanship, but you had to think differently these days. Not big, but wide. With five billion people in the world you couldn’t pick the buggers off one by one any more; you had to spread your effort. But demons like Ligur and Hastur wouldn’t understand. They’d never thought up Welsh-language television for example. Or value-added tax. Or Manchester.”
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Manchester is of course Crowley’s proudest achievement as a demon. Or there is the slight episode where the mighty Kraken rises from the sea once more, directly under a whaling ship.
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“There is a tiny metal thing above it. The kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance.”
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Chapters such as that keep Good Omens chugging along at great pace. What is most obvious is that Pratchett and Gaiman had an absolute hoot writing the book. The interplay is fantastic, a grand piling on of ideas, where ultimately it doesn’t matter who originally conceived of which bits (much like the Pythons).
If you could level any criticism at the book it is that the ending is so bloody nice. The writers literally pull the final punch and leave the reader with a very saccharine outcome after pages and pages of skewering most of modern society (from the 17th century onward). You come to this very perfectly resolved, somewhat hopeful ending, feeling as the writers feared appearing a little too cynical. Picture The Empire Strikes Back if Luke just suddenly strikes down Darth Vader rather than losing his hand (and discovering the true identity of his father).
This is mostly due to the original concept of William the Antichrist -- or rather the character of Adam. While the character is an interesting parody of Damian from The Omen, he tends to drag the action down, giving the book a YA bent that it doesn’t need. After all, the cast of memorable characters is overloaded as it is and the book is simply much funnier when Adam is not around to slow up the pace. One could argue this was a necessary device, a way to cut the more biting parts of the book in order to have some contrast. But in the end, you can’t help but feel that the character could’ve been reduced to a minor one with the emphasis kept on Crowley and Aziraphale’s attempts to thwart their respective sides during the ensuing Armageddon.
It is however somewhat of a nitpick because that flaw is greatly diminished by the overall wit and surgical skewering of all things the Apocalypse in Good Omens. About the only thing funnier is The Left Behind series, but those books are not intentionally humorous.”
Ken W wrote this review Monday, August 4 2008.
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