Hello again, wonderful Good Omens fans! I hope you had an excellent weekend. I’m Meghan and I’m here to ease you into your Monday with the continuing adventures of Crowley and Aziraphale. Let’s get started, shall we?
Summary
Thursday dawns and we get our first real peek at Them (no, not the excellent giant ant B-movie from the ’50s). Them is the term given to four kids in Tadfield who are a general fixture around town and a nuisance. There’s Pepper, a girl who holds her own with the boys and would cut anyone who says she couldn’t. There’s Wensleydale, a forty-year-old accountant in a child’s body. There’s Brian, your quintessentially and perpetually dirty, misbehaving ragamuffin. Finally, there is Adam, the leader. He’s just gotten a new dog.
The news of the day for Them is the arrival of a new woman in town. Pepper knows for a fact she is a witch. She gets a witches’ newspaper and everything. The Them are skeptical of this. Wensleydale has an aunt who reads something similar and she certainly isn’t a witch. As they mull over the nature of witches, Adam decides that they should investigate. After all, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition… Especially when it’s four eleven-year-olds in Tadfield.
After deciding what is and isn’t Spanish, the new Inquisition has their first witch to torture. Pepper’s little sister doesn’t make it easy, though. The torture finally begins and the Them are stymied by how much the tiny witch enjoys it. Then again, who wouldn’t like a dunk in a nice cool pond on a warm summer day? The Inquisition is soon forgotten though everyone still gets in trouble. Such is childhood.
Adam is grounded from watching TV and decides to not weather the indignity of watching it on an old black and white set in his room. Instead, he goes for a walk, meditating on how unfair it all is and how it would serve everyone right if witches did indeed take over. His faithful hound follows him, doing his own meditating on the nature of cats and how much he’s enjoying his new form as a small, scrappy dog. Adam’s feet lead him to the house of Anathema Device, witch. Much to Adam’s bewilderment, she’s crying.
Adam, much to her surprise, is able to lift her spirits a little. She explains that she’s lost a deeply important book. Adam is curious and asks for details. Anathema explains good ol’ Agnes Nutter and her prophecies and he’s excited—until she dashes his hopes and explains that it won’t tell him anything about spaceships or sports victories. Anathema can’t put her finger on it, but there’s something extraordinary about Adam. Not that it matters: There are only three days left before the end of the world and she’s lost the most important book in all of human history.
As they drink lemonade, Anathema tells Adam about all kinds of occult things. There’s ley lines and symbols but also things like whale conservation, rain forests, and recycling. What’s more occult than recycling? Adam’s mind is blown wide open by all of these revelations. She lends him a few magazines and he spends his evening like so many children do, huddled under his duvet with a flashlight, reading. He can’t help but like Anathema and appreciate all she’s done for him. Sure, she might be a witch, but she’s a terribly friendly one who cares about the environment and nuclear power plants. He wishes he could do something nice for her.
Meanwhile, a nearby nuclear power plant has gone on red alert. Alarms are going off and none of the readings from the various instruments and dials make any sense. How does five hundred tons of uranium just disappear like that?
Commentary
Thursday is a short day, but it gives us so many wonderful details about Adam and his friends. I adore them. Pepper is a clear favorite for me but there’s something about Brian that just quintessentially captures a certain kid archetype. For some reason he reminds me a bit of a Weasely. If the book had been made into a show twenty years ago I could easily see young Rupert Grint playing him. Adam is, of course, the real brains of the operation and the others know they have a good thing going by being in his gang.
Buy the Book
The City in the Middle of the Night
Their way of recreating the Spanish Inquisition is so authentically and precociously childlike. I remember playing that way; you probably do as well. When I was eleven I learned an obsessive amount about ancient Egypt and mummified damn near anything I could get my hands on. There are probably still a few Barbies wrapped in toilet paper buried behind my childhood home. Given enough free time and just enough misunderstood knowledge to be dangerous, kids can get into all kinds of shenanigans. It’s so perfectly recreated here as well—hats off to Pratchett and Gaiman. In a book that’s already full to bursting with incredible characters they really outdid themselves with Adam and his friends.
The meeting between Adam and Anathema is also really sweet. Adam just accepts some things so naturally. Kids that age are a sponge for knowledge and he soaks up everything she tells him about the environment and saving the whales and so on. Sure, he gets the wrong idea from it, but his heart is in the right place. Anathema knows something is up with him, too, but just can’t nail down what. This is another thing Agnes Nutter didn’t see coming. What, no quick note along the lines of “the Antichrist will be blond and curious and have a small dog”? C’mon Agnes, you’re letting the whole team down here.
Speaking of Dog, I continue to love him so much. He’s really getting the hang of this “being a small dog” thing. I really believe in him! He seems like he’s having the time of his hellhound life, too: messing with cats, chasing rodents, following his Master around. Dog is living his best life.
Finally, the quick little paragraph about Aziraphale reading Agnes Nutter’s book really resonates with me. Who among us hasn’t utterly lost themselves in a book and come up for air only to find cold tea, seven missed calls, and a sticker on the door from the UPS guy saying you missed that package you had to sign for? Aziraphale is all of us.
Pun Corner
Yes, my darling friends, it’s that time again!
[Adam] “Bet even the Victorians didn’t force people to have to watch black and white television.”
Well, I mean, he’s not wrong?
Cats, Dog considered, were clearly a lot tougher than lost souls.
Anyone who has ever had a cat knows this to be true. Cats are tougher than tons of things, including diamonds and nuclear Armageddon. The list of things not as tough as cats include antique vases, wooden couch legs, and the skin on your arms after trying to coax them into a cat carrier.
Notoriety wasn’t as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity.
I’ll take “Incredibly precise descriptions of social media” for $500, Alex.
Thus, the sun sets on Thursday…and now we have Friday to contend with. What mysteries will unfurl? What adventures will be had? What Queen songs will be listened to? Read all of “Friday,” pages 155 to 188, to find out! I’ll see all you saints and sinners back here next week!
Meghan Ball is an avid reader, writer, and lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. When she isn’t losing to a video game or playing the guitar badly, she’s writing short fiction and spending way too much time on Twitter. You can find her there @EldritchGirl. She currently lives in a weird part of New Jersey.
One thing about Agnes: I don’t think she put everything she saw into the book. She put in the exact right things they needed to read for everything to turn out right. It’s the same ineffability as God, just from the opposite end of the scale. I can totally see her playing poker in the dark and grinning right back.
The Dog naming thing is such a Gaiman touch; there’s no explanation of how naming a demon informs its physical form, he just does it, and it totally makes sense. Of course he’s a little English mutt.
I’m also really happy how they managed to capture the children’s kind of blunt emotional sophistication, like when Adam is annoyed when someone has an idea that he hasn’t had first. Its clear that children have a social pecking order with its rituals and taboos just as complex as any European court, and we just get a tiny glimpse at it.
“Art thou a witch, Oh lay!”
The whole backstory of the world going crazy because Adam is dreaming is one of my utter favourite bits in the book. The trees going Vroom, the aliens landing and always having to pick up the Dalek, and most particularly the bit with the power station, especially the BBC interview to come.
Also Wensleydale is a cheese, which is perfect for our young accountant-to-be.
“Art thou a witch, viva espania?”
Adam and Them are an extended, glorious homage to Richmal Crompton’s William and the Outlaws.
A good few years ago, the Story Museum in Oxford invited 26 authors to choose favourite characters from their own childhood reading. They were photographed dressed as the characters and provided copy for an exhibit about each character. Pratchett chose William. A curious sight he made as a white-bearded man in shorts and school cap, but it was perfect. (Gaiman was Badger from Wind in the Willows.)
@3
“With milk?”
I find it weird that the name “Pippin Galadriel Moonchild,” inspired by Lord of the Rings (and what else?) was used to make a dig at hippies. Isn’t naming your kid after fantasy characters more of a nerd thing? Hippie-nerds exist, of course – I’m one, as are most of my friends from college – but I saw no indication that Pepper’s mother is one. I’ve seen a number of people say they named their kids after fantasy characters – Kaladin, Matrim, Aviendha, etc. – and I highly doubt that all of them are hippies.
The whole thing additionally miffs me because my hippie mom didn’t give me a cool name like that (though sharing a name with a LotR character would have gotten awkward when I read the books and fell madly in love with Gollum) and because descriptions of hippie experiences I haven’t had – I never lived in a tent commune, grew marijuana, or abstained from bra-wearing – always make me doubt my identity and then double down on certainty of it with extra vehemence. I’m a second-generation hippie and proud of it. Bite me. I’ll bite you back, like Gollum.
/end rant
Also, what’s “the other way” a child with such a name can respond to it?
And how did sheep “eat” a minibus? I thought they were less extremely-omnivorous than goats.
Hah. I was more obsessed with food’s healthiness as a child than I am now.
Child logic is endlessly fun to watch/read when I’m not personally arguing with the child(ren) using it.
Wow, the Them are such doubles of the Horsepersons.
The attempted inquisition of a six-year-old “tiny witch” is fun. A friend of mine is helping to raise a three-year-old “witchlet.”
“It was a long shot, but it might just work.” If he was on Discworld, he could replace “long shot” with “million to one chance” and it would definitely work. :-p
“…her thoughts slipped away like a duck off water.” Unusual turn of phrase.
Well, there are going to be “spaceships in it” now.
Looks like Anathema more powerfully influenced Adam in a day than “Brother Francis” influenced Warlock in 11 years.
Too bad he didn’t get rid of all the other nuclear waste. *scowls furiously*
Annotated Pratchett notes on this section of Good Omens:
– [p. 80] “[…] the frequent name changes usually being prompted by whatever Adam had happened to have read […]”
The Hole-in-the-Chalk gang refers to Butch Cassidy’s Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, The Really Well-Known Four to The Famous Five, The Legion of Really Super-Heroes to DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes series, The Justice Society of Tadfield to DC’s Justice Society of America.
– [p. 81] “Pepper’s given first names were Pippin Galadriel Moonchild.”
Both Pippin and Galadriel are characters from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (although Pippin is actually a male hobbit). Terry explains that Pepper’s names are not really a parody of hippie practices:
“It’s an observation. I have signed books for two Galadriels at least — and three Bilboes. Your basic hippy is fairly predictable.”
[AeronaGreenjoy: I still don’t get why this is exclusively associated with hippies. And the only thing I find predictable about other hippies is that being among them makes me happy and living in a place with a paucity of them worsens my depression.]
– [p. 88] “‘I bet ole Torturemada dint have to give up jus’ when he was getting started […]’”
Tomás de Torquemada, Spanish inquisitor-general notorious for his cruelty. He was largely responsible for the expulsion of the Jews from Spain around 1492.
– [p. 95] “Where the reactor should have been was an empty space. You could have had quite a nice game of squash in it.”
For the connection between nuclear reactors and squash courts, see the annotation for p. 138 of Reaper Man .
[The Reaper Man annotation: “This is a reference to the fact that the first nuclear reactor, built by Enrico Fermi, was indeed erected under a squash court. Irrelevant, but interesting, is that for a long time Russian physicists, misled by a poor translation, believed that Fermi’s work was done in a ‘pumpkin field’.”]
There’s a lot of setup in this chapter that’s needed later on; we learn that Adam has immense power when he’s moved to use it, but isn’t really aware of it most of time.
@7: I’m old enough to remember how LotR hit the US in the middle 1960’s; it was never just a nerd phenomenon. You may be a 2nd-generation hippie, but a lot of children-of-hippies grow up very straight; cf Luanna Mountainborn Robinson becoming known as Teri.
Looks like Anathema more powerfully influenced Adam in a day than “Brother Francis” influenced Warlock in 11 years.
Francis taught principles; Anathema gave Adam something big to act on. And Warlock is a relatively random civilian, utterly baffled when shown Har-Megiddo; given the stodgy ordinariness of Tadfield, Anathema may have been the first person to come up with something Adam thought was actionable. (Also — quotes not needed; best guess is that really was Francis of Assisi.)
Too bad he didn’t get rid of all the other nuclear waste. *scowls furiously*
That was fuel, not waste. He might have gotten rid of the waste as well (if he knew where it was — I don’t know whether UK reactor waste is sometimes stored nearby), but waste isn’t as monitored as fuel. Or maybe he was just out of lemon drops….
@8: and the Quarry Gang could be a side reference to the Beatles, since Lennon’s first band was called the Quarrymen. (Queen? Bah — newcomers.) And the whole bit about the reactor points back to one of Pterry’s early jobs (possibly his first actual job as opposed to correspondent work), as a publicist for a power company right after Three Mile Island.
Oh, right. I listened to the part about the nuclear plant with as little attention as possible and tried to forget it afterward, because it was evening and I want to not have nightmares tonight. Honest. Bad idea, but I’m behind on my rereading. Wherever the nuclear waste is, its release will prove initiate-able from Tadfield unless I misread the later part that I refuse to reread.
When did LotR stop being a hippie-exclusive thing and become a nerd thing? I admit I first read it in 2004 after the Peter Jackson films popularized it, though before I personally watched the films, so I don’t know what its pre-film fandom was like.
One of my college teachers once told me I wasn’t a hippie. I hit him with a plastic procupinefish.
Aziraphale went to Heaven and recruited (and re-embodied?) the actual St. Francis for a subversive mission on Earth, without the big boss(es) noticing? *rechecks the annotations* That does seem to be the conclusion. Weird. I didn’t know he could do that. I assumed it was an homage to St. Francis, but not the man himself.
@Aerona
I’m pretty certain Aziraphale had the full cooperation of Heaven in his goal of purifying Warlock. Giving Brother Francis a day release pass would be trivial. The subversive part is that he and Crowley are carefully balancing each other out.
As for Pippin Galadriel Moonchild – the Hobbit was a *massive* hit alongside Dune and Stranger in a Strange Land with the counterculture crowd. It’s not a specifically hippy name, but it feels like it should be. The two ways are either to be a total dreamy flower child or a ferocious rebel, and Pepper is ferocious to her core.
The whole hippy aside is more of the British take on doing American things half-heartedly we see later with Burger Lord, from the rainy Welsh valley of Panty Girdle and its unsexy underwear, to the ubiquitous sheep that ate everything. It’s much easier to be a hippy in a considerate climate, especially with seventies tech.
@7 I too know some of those: a friend of mine is named Lothlorien, and his sister is named Elanor. And yes, hippie (now ex-hippie) parents.
Also knew a guy named Galadriel, but I don’t know about his parents.
None of those read or wanted to read ever LotR…
@@@@@ Aerona
You gotta remember that this book was written in the late 80s, when the kids of the original hippie crowd were still kids roughly the age of the Them, and LOTR and other high fantasy was very much an underground, non-mainstream genre. Tolkien and Heinlein were quasi-religious texts for a segment of that population. Think of people naming their kids Galadriel or whatever as similar to previous generations naming their kids Rachel, Abraham, or Adam.
Come on, everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition now.
the only thing I find predictable about otter hippies is that being among them makes me happy
Well, of course. Look at their little whiskery faces and their sleek pelt.
You gotta remember that this book was written in the late 80s, when the kids of the original hippie crowd were still kids roughly the age of the Them, and LOTR and other high fantasy was very much an underground, non-mainstream genre.
Right on the first part, wrong on the second — at least in Britain. “Lord of the Rings” wasn’t a giant multi-media phenomenon, but it was definitely common knowledge. Other high fantasy books, sure.
I’m pretty certain Aziraphale had the full cooperation of Heaven in his goal of purifying Warlock.
I’m pretty certain he didn’t. You think Heaven wants to stop the War?
@17
Oh no, I think the mere existence of the Antichrist means the War is coming. The raising of the child is both sides trying to get an advantage beforehand. Heaven is ostensibly “Good”, but they still cheat just as much as the Hell side. If the Antichrist is Good, then Heaven will win. If he is Evil, then Hell wins.
What would a win for Heaven mean in this case? No one appears to anticipate the possibility of the world not getting destroyed. But I haven’t closely followed the cosmic politics in this book, or the theology they draw upon.
By the way, just a note, Moonchild comes from Aleister Crowley, the title of his 1972 novel on the birth of a “special child’ who is produced by a sex ritual.
Apparently hippies loved it because of the free love stuff.
What would a win for Heaven mean in this case? No one appears to anticipate the possibility of the world not getting destroyed.
Well, that’s actually addressed later in the book, but I can’t really go into it without fairly large spoilers.
I always assumed it was just one of those names you come up with if you’re of a particularly hippy-fantasynerd-pagan-romantic bent. Never imagined there was a particular cultural reference for it. I wonder if that’s where Michael Ende picked it up from, too.
@22 I believe that’s the same source Ende got it from too. I think.
“One of my college teachers once told me I wasn’t a hippie. I hit him with a plastic procupinefish.”
@AeronaGreenjoy: Just for the record, it would make my ENTIRE CAREER as a college professor if a student ever hit me with a plastic procupinefish! Extra alliteration points if it was purple. :P
I met a guy a couple of years ago, born in the 1980s, whose middle name was Aragorn. I also vaguely recall from college in the 1960s some sf fans who had a daughter named Katharine Arwen, called Katwen.
“One of my college teachers once told me I wasn’t a hippie. I hit him with a plastic procupinefish.”
The Silence of the Lambs remake went in a really unexpected direction.
“What’s more occult than recycling?” Good point. Recycling is a remarkable process of transformation that I find mysterious.
@21: Good. Thank you.
@24: The porcupinefish was a more realistic yellow. :-D
The Hole-in-the-Chalk gang refers to Butch Cassidy’s Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, The Really Well-Known Four to The Famous Five, The Legion of Really Super-Heroes to DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes series, The Justice Society of Tadfield to DC’s Justice Society of America.
Adam and Co. refers to Rudyard Kipling’s Stalky & Co., The Secret Four refers to Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven (yes, the Famous Five was Blyton too, what’s your point?) and to cap it off, The Rebels is Crompton’s The Outlaws.
I suspect the reason why Brian feels like Ron Weasley is common descent: the Harry Potter books also have a little bit of Just William in their DNA, though of course Rowling wasn’t doing an on-the-nose pastiche the way Gaiman and Pratchett are doing here, and if she did, the result would probably be more Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings books, being a boarding school story.
But remember the original core Outlaws were all boys, and William’s Number One lieutenant was Ginger, so the real Ron Weasley analogue isn’t Brian. It’s Pepper!
(there was a girl Outlaw, William’s sweetheart Joan, but she was more peripheral)
There was a Just William TV series a few years after Good Omens came out, with the classic Richmal Crompton illustrations look. The now most notorious cast member being Bonnie Langford who went on to be a controversial Doctor Who companion. I see there was also a 2010 adaptation with a more 1990s Adam look for William.
Speaking of Rudyard Kipling and people named after book characters, I know an elderly man named Kim who says he was named after the Rudyard Kipling character.
@10: “I admit I first read it in 2004 after the Peter Jackson films popularized it, though before I personally watched the films, so I don’t know what its pre-film fandom was like.”
Ah, a newbie. :)
Back in the 1960s, it was pretty much a given that nearly all high school students had read, and loved, LotR. (I was already besotted with Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein, so it never grabbed me the way it did my peers.)