Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

A few weeks ago Terry Pratchett most sadly passed away, momentarily leaving the world a darker place. His writings have been an integral part of my life since childhood, and when I learned to read for pleasure I would always come back to a Discworld novel for good cheer, entertainment, and a little depth. Pratchett has left behind a substantial corpus of literature, and it brings me comfort that at just eight books into writing a review of the entire Discworld series (books 5 to 8 reviewed this January!), I still have a long way to go before the end. This does however present a moment to take a diversion from Pratchett’s flagship series, and to review one of this man’s other most well-known projects; his collaboration with Neil Gaiman, the well-meaning apocalypse Good Omens. Yet this is a book review, not a eulogy, and so I can’t be expected to give this book a clean bill of health should it deserve none; thus if you want a loving tribute to this most worthy writer, then you ought to look elsewhere. Or better yet, wait for a few weeks until I re-read Reaper Man, by which point I expect to be crying my eyes out (with laughter, hopefully, as well as sorrow).

          Good Omens, then. The plot is essentially just a mish-mash of 1976s’ The Omen with a few other bits of late 20^th century blockbusters thrown in for good measure. The demon Crowley is tasked with smuggling a new-born infant, no less than the Antichrist, into the care of a ‘suitable’ human family, with the understanding that after eleven years it will bring about the end of the world. Crowley makes a mistake, and instead of the intended family – that of an American diplomat in the UK – the child instead ends up in the custody of a completely normal couple from the local village. Eleven years go by before Crowley realises his mistake, and when it is finally made known to him he asks help from the only person he can trust; his opposite number from Heaven, the Angel Aziraphale – and so, neither of them wanting the world to end, with the storm-clouds of the imminent Armageddon gathering overhead they set out to locate and kill the Antichrist (an eleven year old boy living a care-free life who loves nothing more than spending time with his friends and playing with his dog). Also sucked into this tangled plot are the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (small-time dealers of death and chaos on their own, reunited for the big finish each with their colour-coded motorcycles), a young witch who possesses the only truly accurate book of prophecies ever written, the last two members of the once vast Witchfinder Army, and a cut-price Medium who lives next door.

          While the two writers are just about able to keep all of these diffused plot-elements held together, all-in-all it feels just a little hotchpotch. At first the various characters are able to maintain distinct personalities, but as the end looms nearer – and the scale of what the writers are trying to achieve becomes apparent – it’s evident that the book is struggling to deliver on all of its promises. The plot meanders around in the early chapters, but by the end it feels as if the whole thing is contriving itself just to try and tie up all the various loose threads. I hate to say this, but I genuinely think that Pratchett and Gaiman overreached themselves here, and it just comes across as underwhelming, what with all the numerous characters getting lost in this vast field and artificially jostling around for the reader’s attention. The final confrontations – because there seem to be at least three separate ones which take place one after another, watering down any dramatic effect they may have had – seem like cardboard cut-outs half-heartedly putting on a Punch-and-Judy show, almost as though the book is trying to get all the excitement across that it promised with as little effort as it can get away with.

          But how does it stack up in the comedy department? Here and there it proves amusing, but it doesn’t really compare to any of Pratchett’s finest works. In places you can definitely recognise the style, and I quite like the running gag about secret agents and ducks:

          ‘The ducks in St James’s Park are so used to being fed bread by secret agents meeting clandestinely that they have developed their own Pavlovian reaction. Put a St James’s Park duck in a laboratory cage and show it a picture of two men – one usually wearing a coat with a fur collar, the other something sombre with a scarf – and it’ll look up expectantly. The Russian cultural attaché’s black bread is particularly sought after by the more discerning duck, while the head of MI9’s soggy Hovis with Marmite is relished by the connoisseurs.’

          [Corgi edition, pg. 46]

And later on, in a section that brings joy to my heart:

          ‘St. James’s Park was comparatively quiet. The ducks, who were experts in realpolitik as seen from the bread end, put it down to a decrease in world tension.’

[Corgi edition, pg. 372]

          So yes, there are odd little jibes at modern Britain, a few pokes at film clichés and one or two half-decent characters floating around in this broth of a book to prompt a chuckle, but alas it’s far from the best comedy novel to ever appear. It goes on a bit too long to be justified by the, at best, variable level of quality seen in the writing, and the watering-down effect of the characters and the amount of contrived story do not weigh in its favour. It won’t hurt you to read it, but at the same time it’s not particularly worthwhile to pursue. Maybe it’s the fault of co-authorship. Pratchett and Gaiman are both excellent writers in their own fields, but this collaboration doesn’t exactly measure up.  

In the end, co-authorship of a novel is probably a bad idea for anyone, no matter how good each writer is. Any truly worthwhile book is the result of the vision and ability on one particular individual, who imbues it with a sense of their own personality, so that while two writers can apparently share the burden of producing a novel, the end result is bound to be watered down, confused and a bit haphazard. But then, what do I know about such things?

What do you think?

Bibliomens

Pratchett, Terry and Gaiman, Neil. Good Omens. Corgi. (1991 [First Published 1990])

The Song of Roland, a Medieval Hack-and-Slash Epic

Since last month I did not review anything particularly noteworthy (I simply made do with a cheap James Herbert novel, and left it at that), so this month I’m going to shove some culture down the internet’s throat. The Song of Roland, or La Chanson de Roland, is a medieval French epic poem, detailing the heroic last-stand of the eponymous Roland and his buddy Oliver against a horde of Islamic warriors – or pagans, as it shamelessly labels them. English translations are available and, as far as these things go, it is not especially long. Think of it as a mini-Iliad, with none of the nuance, or the plot, or the flare.

          The story concerns the near semi-legendary king Charles the Great (AKA. Charlemagne, 768-814 CE), ruler of the Franks, defender of the Papacy, Holy Roman Emperor, and conqueror of large tracts of Western Europe. The historical accuracy of this poem is quite suspect, viewing 8^th century events through an 11^th century lens, so knowing the precise history is not too important. The context of The Song of Roland is that Charles/Charlemagne is busy conquering Spain, in this era under the power of Islamic Moorish rulers, when he gets held up at Saragossa. The pagan king, Marsile, agrees to a truce, and Charles can finally leave Spain and go back home to France (the Frankish empire). Only one person is unhappy about this; Roland, the emperor’s heroic nephew, for he does not trust the enemy. Sure enough, one of Charlemagne’s trusted officers, Ganelon, goes over to king Marsile and hatches a plot with him to have Roland killed. 

As Roland and his buddy Oliver are put in charge of the rearguard while the Frankish army withdraws, they are set upon by the vast horde of Marsile’s army in a battle at Rencesvals (Roncesvalles). Roland fights heroically, his mighty sword Durendal in hand, but it is clear they cannot beat the enemy. In a last bid, Roland blows his trusty Oliphant – an ivory horn, very much the prototype of a certain Horn of Gondor – to summon Charlemagne’s army for help, but by this point it is far too late, and he and his companions perish. When the emperor arrives he is distraught by the loss of his men and his nephew, and makes one last attack on Saragossa, conquering it and at last defeating the Saracen menace. In the last scene, Ganelon is tried for treason, a trial-by-combat takes place, the traitor is executed, but Charlemagne and his people are still sad at losing Roland. The End.

          The poem is made up of around 4000 lines, divided into 298 stanzas, all of varying lengths. Each line is basically its own simple, self contained statement, a mere unambiguous description of what’s going on. Some verses are reinforced by having the following stanza essentially repeat what was said in the previous one, but with very minor changes; which gets a bit tiresome, but fortunately this rarely lasts too long. To show you how basic it is, here’s a passage I selected by opening the book at random:

[118]  “Count Roland calls out to Oliver:

          ‘Lord companion, now Engeler is dead;

          We have no more valiant knight than he.’

          The count replies: ‘May God grant me revenge.’

          He urges on his horse with his spurs of pure gold,

          Wields Halteclere, whose steel is red with blood,

          And with great force goes to strike the pagan.

          He dealt his blow and the Saracen falls;

          Devils carry off his soul.

          Then he slew Duke Alphaien

          And next sliced off the head of Escababi.”

                                                [Lines 1545-1555. Pg.78]

And so it goes on, and on, and on a little bit more. It seems a much rawer piece of writing than any of the Greek epics, much keener on saying simple, broad things here there and everywhere. Much of it is written in the present tense, which makes it a mildly odd thing to read to yourself in bed, but it’s not difficult to get used to – despite the fact that it sometimes changes tense mid-verse, or mid-line even. However, because each line pretty much works on its own, even the densest or most befuddled reader will find it impossible to get lost, or to miss important developments (I stand as my evidence for this, for there is no reader denser or more easily befuddled by things like this). As such, maybe it’d be good to read aloud to children. 

Or then again, maybe not. There’s not all too much moral ambiguity; you have your goodies and you have your baddies – the good guys are called Christians or Franks, and the bad guys are variously described as pagans and/or followers of Muhammad. There’s not much more to it than that. Some guys get together and beat the shit out of each-other, using religion as a pretext. Very much a ‘Crusades’-era’ piece of literature.

What else needs mentioning? The death of Roland himself is apparently a famous event in literature; having burst a vein in his temple, our hero spends his last moments slapping his sword Durendal on a rock, trying to break it and thus prevent it from falling into heathen hands. If you have a soft spot for famous moments, then suppose it is your duty to seek this one out. We have a broken horn, Boromir-esque, Charles the Great wins himself another princess and, all-in-all, you get a bit of that hard-edged Norman chivalry you hear so much about. Would I recommend it? Compared to the Iliad it’s a piece of cake; just slog your way from one end to the other, which isn’t too far, and feel as though you’ve achieved some culture. It’s just that this particular piece of culture consists of a lot of people hitting eachother over the head with chunks of sharpened metal.

The Bibliography of Roland

The Song of Roland. Translated by Glyn Burgess. Penguin. (1990).