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This may be my year of re-reading books.

I decided to cut my reading goal in half this year, because I want to spend more time writing. I also find that what-to-read voice inside my head turning frequently to books I have already read. And there’s another thing… I have an utterly embarrassing love of anything written by Neil Gaiman. This is not the first of his book that I have read repeatedly. I probably shouldn’t be ashamed – he’s really, really good – but it’s probably the literary equivalent of saying that you love The Beatles. But Neil (I feel like we should be on a first name basis by now) is a man who sincerely loves books, comics, libraries, and Ray Bradbury. These are some of my favorite things! We would either be great friends or get on each other’s bloody nerves, so – when one of my book clubs proposed reading Good Omens I naturally voted for it.

A Book Club where no one reads

Okay, I shouldn’t say “no one” but sometimes people in this book club don’t read the book. This group is full of amazing, fun, slightly-off-kilter women, so everyone still wants to hang out. Sometimes they claim they will read the book later, so we don’t talk much about the book because #nospoilers. The meeting to talk about Good Omens has not happened yet, so we’ll see, but some people have said they had trouble getting through it. This is one reason I use audiobooks. I am not a fast reader. I like to take notes and analyze/Google things. Listening to an audiobook while I am in the car does not allow me to do this and forces me to get through the book faster. This is the only way I have read 21 books so far this year (halfway to my goal!)

For Good Omens, I felt like the audiobook helped me get some of the jokes. That kid Adam’s voice kind of made me nuts, but #spoileralert he IS the antichrist, so there is that. I have a thing about certain voices driving me crazy, but I can get past his because all of the other characters are so much fun. There is a lot of fun in this book. It must have been loads of fun for Gaiman to write with his now-late friend Terry Pratchett.

I have another embarrassing admission: This is the only thing I have read by Terry Pratchett.

The movies of The Color of Magic and Hogfather are my only connections with Pratchett. I know that I must read more, because I think some of the best bits in this book were probably his doing. Neil Gaiman said somewhere that someone asked who their audience was for this book, and he replied that he was writing for Terry and Terry was writing for him. Well done, I say! Am I starting to sound British? Crap, I had better talk about the book.

Is this subject matter out of date?

This book was written in 1990. It is hard to imagine, but I was still in junior high. I did not read the book until sometime in the past two years, but now I have read it twice. The first time I was ecstatic at the way it took all of this age-old biblical prophecy stuff and turned it on its head. This time I felt that maybe the topic of The Apocalypse is outdated.

As a 14 year old kid in 1990, I was so terrified of the world ending that I probably would not have enjoyed this book at all. I grew up in a small Southern town where war in the Middle East, among other things, were sure signs that the end was nigh. This was one of my first real experiences with anxiety, and I remember my dad telling me, “Ever since the world began, people have thought it was ending, if it hasn’t happened yet, we don’t need to worry much about it.”

It seems the timing of this book in the 90’s was perfect, but are people still afraid of this sort of Apocalypse now? (pun not intended but I’m going with it) Are we not all more worried about bioweapons and turning into flesh-eating zombies? I am just not sure that a good ol’ Biblical Apocalypse complete with Four Horsemen is relevant anymore.

I am a long way from my junior high church-camp-induced fear of fire and brimstone, and my beliefs have changed a lot. Now I find this book amusing and appreciate the research that must have gone into turning so many allusions on their heads. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, and there is even a reference to the Letters’ recipient Wormwood. This might be the Biblical Culture equivalent of Ready Player One. It could be a lot of fun just to explore the references, but I will leave that to posts like this one.

After my re-read, I also have a better understanding of why I was so traumatized by a “team-building” trip to play laser tag. I had forgotten the paint-ball chapter but my subconscious had not!

While I wonder about the relevancy of the references today, I think the story is still a good one. For one thing, if you have a prophet who gets everything right, people are sure as heck going to ignore or misinterpret them. Often the people who are supposed to be doing good make a royal mess of things and the people who are pure evil help us learn valuable lessons. And Heaven does sound sort of boring, doesn’t it?

“And not one single sushi restaurant.”

More on Good Omens after I watch the upcoming mini-series. Have you read the book? What did you think? Do you have a preference for Gaiman vs. Pratchett? What Terry Pratchett book should I read first? Leave a comment!