Classics Corner: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman; A Brilliant Pythonesque Send Up About Biblical Prophecy and The End of the World

Classics Corner: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman; A Brilliant Pythonesque Send Up About Biblical Prophecy and The End of the World

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: I grew up in a Christian household so I had a very tense childhood filled with nightmares and fear about Satan, Hell, the Rapture, and the Book of Revelation. Those thoughts made me uncomfortable and I dreaded going to church. Many times I worried whether I was “saved” enough and lost a lot of sleep over the years. As I grew older and became a Wiccan, I realized that I didn't agree with that idea of spirituality. If a religion has to guilt trip or scare me into joining, then in my mind, it was not a religion worth having.

I think that's why Good Omens resonates so well with me. It takes many of those Book of Revelation fears and made a comedy out of them. It is sort of like what would happen if The Monty Python guys wrote The Omen or The Left Behind series. Terry Pratchett, late author of the Discworld series and Neil Gaiman, before he became the literary giant we know today, took those concepts found in Biblical prophecy like the Anti-Christ, the End Times, Armageddon and the rest and made them better and funnier.

This send up of Biblical prophecy begins with Crowley, a demon who did not fall from Heaven but just “fell in with a wrong crowd” and Aziraphale, an angel who wants to follow God's ineffable plan no matter how arbitrary it seems. The duo have been on Earth longer than they have been in Heaven or Hell. They have even worked out an Arrangement (in capital letters) where Crawley tempts one person while Aziraphale guides another. Crowley takes one region in England while Aziraphale works another. They don't interfere in each other's transactions, their Bosses get their souls, and everything is hunky dory. That is until Crowley's Hellacious colleagues, Hastur and Ligur show him a certain screaming baby delivered up from the bounds of Hell and he is ordered to take him to the hospital in Tadfield. The baby is the Antichrist and the End definitely is nigh.


That's a bummer for Aziraphale and Crowley because they kind of like Earth. Crowley would miss his barely lived in penthouse flat, his well kept plants, and his beloved Bentley with car phone and tape deck which turns every cassette into the Best of Queen if it has been in the deck longer than two weeks. (This book was published in 1990, one year before Freddie Mercury's death and Queen received a second life thanks to the rerelease of Bohemian Rhapsody). Aziraphale would miss his used bookshop and old antique books, the sweet little cafes where everyone knows his name, and the great classical composers. (Heaven only has two: Elgar and Liszt).

Aziraphale and Crowley make for a memorable duo and their moments together are a delight as the two bicker, agree, and talk like an old married couple leaving many Readers (such as myself) to conclude that maybe they are a couple. Crowley's cynical barbs match up with Aziraphale's idealistic naive quips making them more of a comedy team instead of beings on opposite sides of the war between God and Satan.
One of the highlights is an argument in which Crowley tries to convince Aziraphale to thwart Armageddon by reminding him that he still hasn't seen the end of Sound of Music. (“And you'll enjoy it, you really will.”) Because they will miss Earth and each other, the duo decide to take matters into their own hands or rather into their own wings and cloven hooves. They decide to watch over the baby and steer him towards good or evil.

Great idea but oh wait the baby was delivered to the wrong couple. They've been watching the wrong one and the real Anti-Christ has grown up without any angelic or demonic influence.


Besides Aziraphale and Crowley, Good Omens has some other great situations and characters. There is Agnes Nutter, a 17th century witch whose prophecies are spot on much to detriment of her descendant, Anathema Device and her new boyfriend, Newton Pulcifer who happens to be the descendant of the Witch Hunter who executed Agnes.

There are the Horse Persons of the Apocalypse now taking advantage of modern era. War is an arms dealer turned war correspondent. Famine writes diet books which promote not eating and also creates a series of frozen foods with no nutritional or edible value whatsoever. Pestilence is out for the count because of penicillin and antibiotics, so he is replaced by Pollution who works on various oil tankers that mysteriously explode. Death is well, Death.
The Four Horse Persons even ditch their horses in favor of motorcycles and also get new members to their gang with names like “Things That Don't Work Properly After You Give Them a Good Thumping” and “Really Cool People.”

Then there is the Anti-Christ, Adam Young who is a cross between Tom Sawyer, Booth Tarkington's Penrod, and Anthony Freemont from the Twilight Zone episode “It's a Good Life.” He is forever getting into mischief with his friends Pepper, Wensleydale, and Brian and his dog, Dog, and doing typical kid things like playing “The British Inquisition” and “Charles Fort and the Tibetans Vs. The Aliens” based on things he read. He is able to make things happen such as causing aliens to appear and Atlantis to rise from the oceans but is unaware of the reason why until it is almost too late. (In one of the few dramatic moments, Adam understands the full scope of his powers and has to appeal to his friends to stop him.)

There are great moments sprinkled throughout the book such as the Bugger Alle This Bible which has a few extra verses transcribed by a clearly irritated typesetter. There is an order of Satanic nuns whose job it is to deliver the Antichrist only to make a mess of things when they give him to the Youngs and who one member turns their temple into a meeting place for businesspeople to work out their aggressions by playing paintball.

There is a great moment where Aziraphale crashes a religious telecast and gives some American Bible Thumpers what for about the Rapture. (“Who has time to go round picking people out and popping them up in the air to sneer at the people dying of radiation sickness on the patched and burning Earth below them?”)
Of course there is the inevitable final showdown between God, the Devil, and Our Heroes in which they try to convince them that the World doesn't have to end.

Good Omens is a great book especially if you are familiar with the Bible and it's End Times prophecies. But even those who aren't, will love the wordplay, dialogue, farcical situations, and story in which Good and Evil don't fight so much as perform a stand up comedy act.