Scan barcode
A review by inhonoredglory
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
5.0
Second Read, via [b:Good Omens: A Full Cast Production|59070551|Good Omens A Full Cast Production|Neil Gaiman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1632532899l/59070551._SX50_.jpg|93553140] (January 2022)
I jumped at the chance to get the full cast production of this––how could I resist, high on the announcement of the second season and knowing David Tennant and Michael Sheen reprise their roles as the ineffable husbands in this splendid audio production (and Doctor Who’s Arthur Darvill plays Newt; you can’t get a more sympathetic, charming voice). I haven’t re-read Good Omens since seeing the show for the first time, and revisiting the original world was a treat. I still maintain that GO is one of the best book-to-TV adaptations, retaining every bit of charm as the original but gaining an even more honed emotional depth and rapport for its primary duo.
Some things that stood out on this re-read/listen was how Adam was the voice of most of the book’s thematics––from the comment about their not being any sides to explaining that people just want opposition so they can feel like they're the better gang. The ecological themes are thickly present too, with Adam’s moving observation that fixing our ecological problems “magically” wouldn’t help us learn to stop making bad choices, that “the only sensible thing is for people to know if they kill a whale, they've got a dead whale.” I also appreciated Newt’s sardonic search for meaning, and the hilarious, “then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that.” I can’t.
And then of course, there’s Aziraphale and Crowley, that deft, understated British sappiness coming out at the end before they both decide they must face Satan themselves. The moral contemplations happen afterwards, with Crowley and Aziraphale throwing up the questions that maybe all of it was planned after all. That’s what I love about this book, this particular critique of Christianity, that it’s not as scathing as you’d think it could be. It allows for that bit of open space to wonder, that maybe we’re not all-knowing, either. Good Omens comments on humanity, most of all, and all the silly things we do and all the sure-as-hellfire convictions we hold that are based mostly on our own need to feel important and useful and alive more than anything. That maybe we ought to become a bit more like humble, like little children again, and see stupidity for what it is, and how we ought to look, not Up nor Down, but Inside, and that maybe we ought to try sorting it all out while we’re alive, and that we all of us are human, wonderfully and “perfectly poised exactly between Heaven and Hell.”
First Read (July 2019)
I don't even know how to start on this book. It's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but with small English towns, chattering Satanist nuns, and four horsemen (or rather, heavy metal bikers) of the Apocalypse. An angel and a demon get caught up in something unfortunately much bigger than themselves (and all the while just want to have a charming life together on earth), while wisdom (and more than a little mischief) comes tumbling out of the lips of babes (or eleven-year old Antichrist figures and his band of quite-insightful-through-their-children's-logic friends). The combination of impossible British madcap humor and outrageously sarcastic religio-fantasy is addictive, to say the least. The odd coupling of its two heroes, the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale, won me over to squeals. Its traipsing romp through the End Times is both brilliant and insightful, its tone a philosophical al dente of biting condemnation and gentle-hearted hopefulness (a truly divine comedy). Utterly British and ineffably brilliant.
I highly recommend giving this at least one listen-through via the audiobook by Martin Jarvis, whose voices are impeccable and capture the very essence of British humor in this entire opus. His Crowley and Aziraphale brim with chemistry and spot-on comedic timing.
I jumped at the chance to get the full cast production of this––how could I resist, high on the announcement of the second season and knowing David Tennant and Michael Sheen reprise their roles as the ineffable husbands in this splendid audio production (and Doctor Who’s Arthur Darvill plays Newt; you can’t get a more sympathetic, charming voice). I haven’t re-read Good Omens since seeing the show for the first time, and revisiting the original world was a treat. I still maintain that GO is one of the best book-to-TV adaptations, retaining every bit of charm as the original but gaining an even more honed emotional depth and rapport for its primary duo.
Some things that stood out on this re-read/listen was how Adam was the voice of most of the book’s thematics––from the comment about their not being any sides to explaining that people just want opposition so they can feel like they're the better gang. The ecological themes are thickly present too, with Adam’s moving observation that fixing our ecological problems “magically” wouldn’t help us learn to stop making bad choices, that “the only sensible thing is for people to know if they kill a whale, they've got a dead whale.” I also appreciated Newt’s sardonic search for meaning, and the hilarious, “then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard, self-satisfied strength of belief even for that.” I can’t.
And then of course, there’s Aziraphale and Crowley, that deft, understated British sappiness coming out at the end before they both decide they must face Satan themselves. The moral contemplations happen afterwards, with Crowley and Aziraphale throwing up the questions that maybe all of it was planned after all. That’s what I love about this book, this particular critique of Christianity, that it’s not as scathing as you’d think it could be. It allows for that bit of open space to wonder, that maybe we’re not all-knowing, either. Good Omens comments on humanity, most of all, and all the silly things we do and all the sure-as-hellfire convictions we hold that are based mostly on our own need to feel important and useful and alive more than anything. That maybe we ought to become a bit more like humble, like little children again, and see stupidity for what it is, and how we ought to look, not Up nor Down, but Inside, and that maybe we ought to try sorting it all out while we’re alive, and that we all of us are human, wonderfully and “perfectly poised exactly between Heaven and Hell.”
First Read (July 2019)
I don't even know how to start on this book. It's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but with small English towns, chattering Satanist nuns, and four horsemen (or rather, heavy metal bikers) of the Apocalypse. An angel and a demon get caught up in something unfortunately much bigger than themselves (and all the while just want to have a charming life together on earth), while wisdom (and more than a little mischief) comes tumbling out of the lips of babes (or eleven-year old Antichrist figures and his band of quite-insightful-through-their-children's-logic friends). The combination of impossible British madcap humor and outrageously sarcastic religio-fantasy is addictive, to say the least. The odd coupling of its two heroes, the demon Crowley and the angel Aziraphale, won me over to squeals. Its traipsing romp through the End Times is both brilliant and insightful, its tone a philosophical al dente of biting condemnation and gentle-hearted hopefulness (a truly divine comedy). Utterly British and ineffably brilliant.
I highly recommend giving this at least one listen-through via the audiobook by Martin Jarvis, whose voices are impeccable and capture the very essence of British humor in this entire opus. His Crowley and Aziraphale brim with chemistry and spot-on comedic timing.