GOOD OMENS
Copyright © Rebecca Swain & Folk Tales
The Antichrist has been misplaced, and it's up to a couple of angels to find him and help prevent the end of the world. If you like the sound of this, you'll probably like this book. I liked the novel for the first hundred pages or so; then it began to annoy me. Good Omens is a lighthearted fantasy about Armageddon. The Antichrist comes to earth as a newborn baby, but a nurse accidentally switches him with another newborn, and for eleven years he grows up as a normal child. Two angels realize that the babies have been switched, and decide to try and find the Antichrist and prevent the end of the world, since they like it as it is. Meanwhile, Anathema Device, an attractive witch, studies The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, a book of accurate predictions that has been handed down in her family since the 1600s when Agnes, Anathema's ancestor, was burned at the stake. Anathema knows Armageddon is coming, but because the prophecies are rather cryptic, she's not sure where or when. When the Antichrist is eleven years old, these and several other eccentric characters converge on the small English town of Tadfield, where the Antichrist (now known as Adam) lives. They have discovered, accidentally or by studying the prophecies, that the end of the world is at hand, and they all want to be with Adam, to try and prevent the end, to encourage the end, or just because Tadfield is where peculiar things are happening. We then have the classic battle of good against evil, although neither side seems to be quite sure what's going on. This book contains a type of writing I think of as almost exaggeratedly English. Douglas Adams, T. H. White, and P. G. Wodehouse are authors who write in this style, with very British phrasing and lots of eccentrics fumbling about, and everything, even evil itself, being treated lightly. The writing is droll, the events downplayed, and almost everyone is presented as really quite likeable if you meet them over tea and biscuits. There's a harmlessness to everything, even the end of the world. Normally I find this kind of writing amusing and charming, but in a book of this length (354 pages) it becomes a little cloying. What bothers me most about the novel is its facile philosophizing. We are told that some of the worst people can perform astounding acts of good, and that Hell couldn't possibly come up with tortures as terrible as those humans have devised for themselves. These ideas may be true, but the sentimental I'm-OK-you're-OK tone does a disservice to any point Gaiman and Pratchett are trying to make. It's as if they want to say something serious about good and evil, but they can't be serious long enough to say it. Having said this, I will say that if you are looking for a lighthearted read that won't make you think, you will enjoy this book. Some of the imagery is very good, and Gaiman and Pratchett put an interesting spin on Einstein's famous quote "God does not play dice with the universe." The characters are generally likeable and the plot hangs together pretty well. If you don't expect too much, you'll have a good time. Back to the Reviews-section. |