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 20th 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])
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