Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
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For my money there are two themes in this book which are important to take away.
The first and most important in this world of labels is that you don’t have to be who you’re supposed to be. I watched Queer as Folk as a teen and The L Word was for some reason an interest of my mother’s, which I ended up watching some of. Queer Eye was around then too, the original. I don’t believe these to be great introductions for a queer boy into a world they’re realising they’re a part of. I’ve never particularly liked fashion or dancing as much as those shows told me I ought to. I do remember thinking “do I need to have that many partners? I kind of just want one nice one.” Rare is the media where a queer character resides where it’s not a plot point. (Good Omens might be one of those rare gems, in fact.)
This book, right from the start, kicks off with two people doing something they probably shouldn’t have done. Their communities might not be so welcoming to them if it was known… Aziraphale and Crowley spend their days in a culture they’re not designed for and end up loving it enough to try and save it. They didn’t conform to the way of human’s either. They carved their own slice of the world for themselves and lived in it happily for some six thousand years.
The second message is a delightful that I hope to one day be comfortable enough to wrap myself up in and truly believe – throwing away the stress of the contrarywise. Even people who think they understand why we’re here, truly have no idea. It’s up to you to set your own direction. There’s no right path. No need to aim for getting rich or having a certain number of kids or owning a house by the time you’re 30. Just do you.
I like this book and I’ll be happy to come back to it again in a few years to reread. There’s a good number of seeds in here, and I’ve not read enough Gaiman or Pratchett to know if they picked them up and ran with them elsewhere. I love the idea of ancient roles where there’s maybe only one person left who cares about it; there must be hundreds. I also love the idea that they’re secret – unbeknownst even to them – of great importance to the survival of humanity. There are a few really interesting ideas of how demons/assorted horsemen do their work in a modern society. In the time since this book was released, it’s clear that they’ve had to up their game judging by recent worldwide events.
Be warned that there’s a lovely couple of letters at the end of the book where presumably the published ask “what was it like working with him?” to both the gentlemen. They both discuss their meeting and budding friendship. So Gaiman is talking in a past tense that is all the more heartbreaking now.