Hello friends, and welcome back to the Good Omens reread! I’m still Meghan and I’m still glad to see you! Last week we finished laying the foundation for the book and now we can really step on the gas—let’s see what Wednesday has in store for us!
Summary
It’s a hot summer day and the 11th birthday of one very special little boy. Warlock, the Antichrist, is having the birthday party to end all birthday parties. Unfortunately, the children’s performers his parents hired were struck down with a stomach bug. Even more unfortunately, Aziraphale has turned up to fill in. The little hobby that’s kept him going all these dreary, dark centuries has been practicing sleight of hand magic. He never uses his angelic powers to help him (that would be cheating!), and because of that, his magic skills are completely rubbish. The children are incredibly mean to him and tear him (figuratively) to shreds. Crowley watches his friend die on stage—some things just can’t be helped—while keeping an eye out for the hellhound that was promised.
A food fight erupts and the hellhound does not arrive. Something has gone terribly amiss. This means that Warlock is clearly not the Antichrist. But if he isn’t, who is?
The hellhound, meanwhile, has blinked into existence near a town called Tadfield. It slinks towards its master, teeth sharp and ready to tear apart anything in its path. It hears its master’s voice and waits, excitedly, to be named. The question of what it will be called will change the course of a hellhound’s whole life, giving it purpose and identity. Maybe “Killer”? Or “Demon”! But what its young master decides is that he wants a proper little mongrel terrier named, simply, “Dog.”
Crowley and Aziraphale decide to go through the records of the old Satanic hospital to find out if there were more than two babies born that day. They careen through London like a bat out of, well, you know, and Aziraphale is introduced to a beautiful selection of classical music, all covered by one F. Mercury.
Meanwhile, Anathema Device, witch, is out surveying and checking things against the all important book. Everything is going according to plan. Well, that is, until Crowley and Aziraphale crash into her life. Literally. The Bentley smacks into her bike and she goes tumbling. Aziraphale is horrified and helps her, mending a small fracture and fixing the bike all without her knowledge. He’s pleased that he can do a good deed. Meanwhile, Crowley glares at the Bentley and it fixes itself as well, and he argues with Anathema over why neither of them had lights on and who had the right of way. Aziraphale insists they drive her to her home, apologetic. Crowley can’t get away from her fast enough and once she’s out he drives back into the night, intent on saving his own skin. Anathema dwells for a moment on what odd people the two strangers were…then realizes with startling horror the book is gone.
Crowley and Aziraphale show up to the old Satanic nunnery and are immediately shot. Crowley complains about how bothersome it will be to get a new body before he realizes he’s actually still alive. And covered in paint. He rouses Aziraphale, who is very cranky for an angel by this point, and they go to find out what in the blazes is going on. It turns out that Sister Mary Loquacious had stayed on to take charge of the manor for the past eleven years and discovered a real talent for numbers and finances. With the Chattering Order disbanded, she took it upon herself to become a new woman and give her life new meaning. Thus, the manor became the Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center—the premier location for office get-togethers, bonding excursions, and, yes, paintball battles.
This does not amuse Crowley. He’s had a very trying decade and he’s had about enough. He scares the office drone who shot him into unconsciousness and the pair tromp off into the manor itself, leaving behind a very nifty present for their would-be assassin. As they look for Sister Mary, all hell breaks loose outside as some of the office groups discover their paintball guns now fire real, live ammo. While everything outside descends into ’80s action movie anarchy, Crowley and Aziraphale find their quarry.
Crowley is 100% done messing around and simply snaps his fingers at the woman formerly known as Sister Mary, dropping her into a hypnotized daze. In a trance, she tries to answer all his questions, but she doesn’t know very much about the switch—she just remembers the babies were adorable. Having gotten nothing for their efforts, the demon and the angel abandon the nun and drive back out into the night before the police, busy rounding up the gun-happy management trainees, take any notice of them. Sitting in the Bentley they mull over how the world will end and what it may mean for them. They put all their cards on the table and tell each other what humans and organizations they have influence over. Some names appear on both lists. That’s humans for you—always trying to be on the winning team and doing their best to exploit a loophole. They decide to send some of their human teams to try and find the child. With that settled, Crowley takes Aziraphale home. Grabbing his coat from the back seat, the angel discovers a very, very special book.
Finally, as the chapter winds down, we find ourselves on a charming little island in the Mediterranean where Carmine “Red” Zuigiber (aka War) has decided to vacation. In the midst of a heated civil war (which had mysteriously sprung up upon her arrival), she receives a very odd package that signals the beginning of the end: an apocalyptic call to arms.
Commentary
Aziraphale’s attempt at being a magician is such a glorious, horrible moment of secondhand cringe. It feels like something that would happen on an episode of Parks and Rec or The Office. I always feel so bad for him. He tries so hard. Crowley, of course, thinks the whole thing is absolute pants and he isn’t wrong. Are there any creatures more vicious than eleven-year-old children? Sure, you could say it’s demons or bears (or demon bears!) but I’ve been through middle school. I have the scars. I know what the real answer is.
I’d also like to take a moment to shout out how much I love just the very idea of Dog. Here is this gruesome, fearsome hellhound all ready to rip apart the unfaithful and see that his master is victorious in battle. All he needs is a suitable name…then it all goes to pieces and he turns into a charming little pup, like something straight out of a cartoon. I keep imagining him as Snowy from Tintin, with a little stubby tail and yippy bark: the perfect companion for a young boy. I love how confused the hellhound is, and how it sort of shrugs and decides, “Well, when in Rome!” It’s compelled to do what its master desires and suddenly it wants belly rubs and sticks to chase. Part of me thinks it’s sort of a kindness, for the hellhound. Imagine how carefree and happy he is now. It’s like someone who has spent years in a grim dead-end job and they’ve finally found happiness in a whole new, unexpected career.
In my day job I work for a rather large corporation, so the team-building paintball scenes never fail to make me laugh. They aren’t outlandish at all. Office culture certainly hasn’t changed since this book was published. The cubicle-filled labyrinth of the modern office is still cutthroat and full of petty little indignities…and this was written before open offices became a thing! I’d like to think Crowley was behind open office plans. That seems like something he’d do.
Sister Mary Loquacious, now Mary Hodges, is awesome. I love how she took charge of her life, learned some new skills, and was able to make the Satanic manor into a thriving business that generates income for her. You’re never too old (or too silly, or too Satanic) to learn something new!
Poor Anathema. Agnes didn’t see THAT coming, now did she? I love how Aziraphale just can’t help himself and he has to “upgrade” her damaged bike. I also love how the luggage rack he magics into being has tartan straps. It’s so him! It annoys Crowley too, which just adds to the hilarity. Anathema takes it all in stride, for the most part—she recognizes that these two are more than they appear and just rolls with it. If she was really in danger, Agnes surely would have warned her. I’ve always wondered why Agnes didn’t know the book was going to get lost, though. That’s a relatively important plot point and she’s utterly silent about it. Anathema is completely taken by surprise, which must be a novel feeling for someone who’s known all her life precisely how everything is going to turn out.
As an aside, Aziraphale getting his hands on her book is such a great turning point. It’s the break in the case he and Crowley needed. I also deeply enjoy the description of the title page of the book with all the different text sizes and fonts—it reminds me of that old “Graphic design is my passion!” meme that gets trotted out on social media every time someone finds a sign with bad kerning. Kerning is probably another thing we can blame Crowley for. Do you want to make your friends and family suffer for the rest of time? Teach them all about kerning. They’ll never forgive you.
And finally, we have War on vacation. It’s an incredible scene because it shows her true power. While just her mere presence on the island brings about a violent civil war, she’s clearly not simply a passive player, and once she had the sword in her hand, it’s game over. There are parts of the scene that are played for laughs, like the oblivious British couple on vacation, but the entire interlude really has a lingering miasma of malice about it. It always gives me chills.
Pun Corner
Now it’s for my favorite part of the week: let’s take another jaunt into that bastion of silliness, Pun Corner!
“I don’t recognize this,” [Aziraphale] said. “What is it?”
“It’s Tchaikovsky’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’,” said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough. To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd’s “We Are the Champions” and Beethoven’s “I Want to Break Free.” Neither were as good as Vaughn William’s “Fat-Bottomed Girls.”
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m much more partial to Debussy’s “Killer Queen,” myself.
“Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it,” said Aziraphale gloomily.
“All those higher life forms just scythed away, just like that.”
“Terrible.”
“Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.”
Absolutely savage.
[Anathema, trying to find her book]: She even tried the one which every romantic nerve in her body insisted should work, which consisted of theatrically giving up, sitting down and letting her glance fall naturally on a patch of earth which, if she had been in any decent narrative, should have contained the book.
…Wow, I came here to have a good time and I feel so attacked right now, book; if you’re going to drag me like that, just @me next time! Though I have always adored the winking little backhanded dig at their own work.
And that’s Wednesday all wrapped up: what an eventful day it was! Now it’s headlong into Thursday, pages 127 to 152. Thank you for joining me again on this madcap adventure. Can’t wait to see you again next week—it’s going to be a good one!
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.
I’d argue that Agnes almost certainly saw the loss of the book coming, though you have to read between the lines for that. With all her family’s notes, Anathema certainly didn’t need it any more, but the shock of losing it opened her up to encountering first Adam and then Newt (spoilers?). In fact, as you point out, losing the book was necessary for Aziraphale to figure out what was going on and for everything else in this wonderfully twisty plot to happen. Loving the re-read regardless
Anathema’s pretending to give up is like me threatening to rage-quit a videogame if I can’t manage to do whatever I’ve been attempting (for hours) to do. It doesn’t work, but I try it all the same.
@2 This is incredibly me. I’m currently barreling my way through Dark Souls and my technique seems to be “swear and rage quit”. Somehow the bosses aren’t intimidated by that. Total scam if you ask me.
Sister Mary! My favorite! And I love that after they’re done, Crowley and Aziraphale just let her keep doing her thing.
Like @1, I’m sure Agnes knew the book would be lost. Of course, she also knew what it would lead to.
Yeah, pretty certain not only did Agnes know the book would be lost, she knew that she needed to hide that fact from the family lest they interfere.
Whoa, a Sunday post.
Annotated Pratchett notes on this portion of Good Omens:
– [p. 43] “He had attended a class in the 1870s run by John Maskelyne […]”
John Maskelyne was a 19th century stage magician who specialised in sleight-of-hand illusions. He is fondly remembered in the illusionist community as a mentor to aspiring young magicians. He also gained some notoriety for exposing fraudulent spiritualists.
– [p. 46] “‘I-should-be-so-lucky, -lucky-lucky-lucky-lucky,’”
This is the chorus to Kylie Minogue’s break-through hit ‘I should be so lucky’:
Notice that this is yet another misquote: there are only four successive ‘lucky’s, not five.
– [p. 46] The scenes of Adam growing up in Tadfield are an affectionate parody of the Just William books by Richmal Crompton.
They are a series of books about William Brown (age 11) and his gang of Outlaws: Ginger, Douglas and Henry. The Johnsonites in Good Omens parallel the Laneites in Just William, Hubert Lane being a similarly lugubrious podgy kid.
– [p. 49] “‘I’ll call him Dog,’ said his Master, positively.”
There’s a nice resonance here with the biblical Adam giving names to all the animals in God’s creation (Genesis 2:19).
– [p. 52] ‘Another One Bites The Dust’, ‘We Are The Champions’, ‘I Want To Break Free’ and ‘Fat-Bottomed Girls’ are all songs by Queen (see the annotation for p. 3).
Queen fans have pointed out that at the time Good Omens was released, there was no (or at least no easily available) Queen greatest hits album that actually contained all of these songs. A more recently released double album has remedied this situation.
– [p. 58] “‘It’s probably compline, unless that’s a slimming aid.’”
No, compline is indeed one of the periods of the religious day (around 18.00 h, according to my copy of The Name of the Rose). The slimming aid is ‘complan’.
– [p. 65] “The contingent from Financial Planning were lying flat on their faces in what had once been the haha, although they weren’t very amused.”
If you don’t know what a haha is, see the annotation for p. 58 of Men at Arms .
– [p. 70] “…Bee-elzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me…“
Another line from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
– [p. 73] “The Nice And Accurate Prophecies made the Hitler Diaries look like, well, a bunch of forgeries.”
Stern magazine published a series of Hitler’s diaries in the mid-80s which, in fact, turned out to be forgeries.
– [p. 75] “[…] Elvis was taken by Space Aliens in 1976 because he was too good for this world.”
Actually, Elvis died in 1977, so perhaps these Space Aliens left a doppelgänger? Neil and Terry seem to be using the wrong year deliberately, because later on (p. 177, during the video trivia game scene) there is a reference to both Bing Crosby and Marc Bolan dying in 1976, when in fact they both died in 1977 as well.
– [p. 79] “‘This wouldn’t of happened if we’d of gone to Torremolinos like we usually do,’ […]”
Torremolinos is a resort on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, which in the past was very popular with the more downmarket sort of British holiday-maker. In US terms, imagine Atlantic City/Las Vegas. Take it down market a bit. A bit more. No, a bit more than that. There. That’s beginning to get close to Torremolinos. The town has in recent years made a great effort to change its image and attract a better class of tourist but whether this has worked remains doubtful.
Poor Aziraphale. As a public natural-history educator, this kind of audience reaction is a nightmare. Luckily, kids tend to find marine life (living or fossilized) sufficiently interesting, so I haven’t had to face that experience often.
Yeah, these kids are acting rather more diabolical than the actual Antichrist. And I expect a gerbil can be as demonic as a dog. :-p
Why was Aziraphale doing that show, if Crowley could sneak into the party as a waiter? Did he think it would go so much better than it did?
“Lord of the Files” *snort* Good one. *checks the Annotations* And it’s addressed later, I see. Ah well.
So the air base in Tadfield was what brought the diplomat’s pregnant wife to the vicinity of the Satanic nunnery where the Antichrist could be transferred to her. Is that the same base where the…*shudders and tries to stop thinking*…showdown happens? I assume so, but don’t recall for certain.
“That’s sexism, that is, going around giving people girl stuff just because they’re girls.” Truth. Gender-coding objects is absurd, says me.
I’m pretty sure knitting and orgasms are not mutually-exclusive aspects of life.
Pratchett used the teambuilding paintball scenario in The Science of Discworld 2. I enjoyed it more in that rather-boring book than I do here, as real guns and bullets were never involved because such things don’t exist on Discworld except in a very short and disastrous time period.
Yeah, the scene with War is chilling. Especially in retrospect, knowing how she’ll lead the rest of the dreadful mission. But I like the comparison of her to a forest fire – beautiful and fascinating at a distance, very very bad to have up close.
It’s still a bit unclear to me exactly how she causes these wars. Men all desire her, and fight each other trying to ‘get’ her? She persuades people to fight each other for other reasons? People near her feel unaccountably aggressive, as they feel hungry around Famine? All of the above? I feel like we get more explanations of how Famine and Pollution operate.
The part describing the title page of The Book reminds mi of old tombstones, which are, in their own way, wonderful. Like this one:
While just her mere presence on the island brings about a violent civil war, she’s clearly not simply a passive player, and once she had the sword in her hand, it’s game over.
Wait, did you read that scene as saying that War takes the sword out of the parcel and then kills everyone in the hotel restaurant? Because that’s not how I read it at all. I thought she simply influenced them all to kill each other.
I think that’s how she operates; she makes it seem like a good idea to fight, just as Famine makes it seem like a good idea to do things that cause people to starve. And they both make it easier to do so; War is an arms dealer initially, remember. Pollution seems to be a bit more active – he actually pushes buttons. But (spoiler) towards the end of the book, after they go away, someone asks where they went?
Right. When she got the sword and started to leave, the men suddenly realized she was dangerous, encircled her, and shot her, but the bullets missed and they all killed each other in the crossfire. Then she looked innocently around at the bodies, licked someone’s blood off her hand — nice touch — and headed out. It makes sense that she would make people feel unaccountably aggressive, though she’s not currently selling them weaoons with which to act on that aggression.
They went “Where they belong. Where they have always been. Into the minds of men.”
Ah, OK.
Why was Aziraphale doing that show, if Crowley could sneak into the party as a waiter? Did he think it would go so much better than it did?
Definitely. Aziraphale was completely convinced that the job description for a children’s party entertainer had not changed materially since 1895.
I also caught the “Beelzebub, Lord of the Files”. It’s either a typo or a pun and it cracked me up. I really love the puns in here that I never noticed before.
For those commenting on the book description, here’s an example of the kind of thing they’re describing. book cover
In which we see that Aziraphale(*) is even more clueless than we realized; I can see him not noticing that men don’t wear pocket handkerchieves any more (after all, some have decorative-but-useless bits of cloth in place), but not noticing that thrupenny bits disappeared? (Is this a consequence of being (as established in the previous chapter) the sort of bookseller who does his best not to sell any books, and so never seeing cash.) Makes you wonder how he’s clueful enough to realize that Armageddon is a bad idea, even with Crowley’s graphic description.
Another spot-on bit of snark: the description of the tabloid Carmen works for.
@7: your copy of The Name of the Rose is … peculiar; Compline, appropriately to the time the two arrive in Tadfield, is the last service before bedtime. 6pm (i.e., average sunset) would be Vespers. I get the impression some modern shelters have squeezed the canonical hours a bit so that the inhabitants can get a decent night’s sleep, but Compline at 6pm seems unlikely.
(*) wrt pronunciation: note that one of the autographs in his collection gives it four syllables (“Azerafel”)
@16: ‘Fraid I don’t know what’s up with that. I don’t write the annotations; I just copy-and-paste them.
@15 Oh yes, I remember these two well.
Robinson Crusoe, or : The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates.
And
A Generall Historie of Virginia, or :The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles: With the Names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Governours from Their First Beginning, Ano: 1584. To This Present 1624. With the Procedings of Those Several Colonies and the Accidents That Befell Them in All Their Journyes and Discoveries. Also the Maps and Descriptions of All Those Countryes, Their Commodities, People, Government, Customes, and Religion Yet Knowne. Divided into Sixe Books, by Captaine John Smith sometymes Governour in those Countryes and Admirall of New England.
aka the story of Pocahontas.
@7: your copy of The Name of the Rose is … peculiar; Compline, appropriately to the time the two arrive in Tadfield, is the last service before bedtime. 6pm (i.e., average sunset) would be Vespers. I get the impression some modern shelters have squeezed the canonical hours a bit so that the inhabitants can get a decent night’s sleep, but Compline at 6pm seems unlikely.
The Name of the Rose takes place in winter. In the Foreword, Eco explains the timings: sunset in northern Italy in late November is around 1640. Compline is at around 1800, and the monks go to bed before 1900, rising for Matins (or Vigiliae) between 0230 and 0300, followed by Lauds at 0500 (in order to end Lauds at first light). Terce and Sext are at 0900 and 1200 respectively, Nones between 1400 and 1500.Vespers is at 1630 or so, as the Rule of St Benedict prescribes eating before sunset.
Would it be unwise, given the nature of the book under discussion, to wonder what happened to comments #7 and #8?
Post #7 is still here. Post #8 was a spammy invitation to join the Illuminati.
@19: so “peculiar”, in an antique sense, applies; Compline would be later outside the dark quarter of the year. Sunset at 1640 in Italy some time in November sounds plausible; I remember London being dark enough for Guy Fawkes fireworks show at 1700 (true, not BST). Compline would be especially later in this chapter, which we’re told right at the start is in August; I don’t have a British almanac on hand but remember sunset southwest of London being close to 2100(BST) in mid-August. Makes you wonder whether the Chattering Beryllians who botched the swap were short of sleep; do they get an afternoon nap when the nights are so short?
When Crowley decides to put on a little music, and “Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me” makes him scream and turn it off….. always made me laugh, but formed an odd turning point for me in this re-read. Up until now I had occasionally tried visualizing how a particular scene might look in the upcoming filmed version, with moderate success. This scene however was so perfectly attuned to my recollection of some of Tennant’s more manic Who moments that suddenly the book popped into focus with him clearly speaking the lines and being the character of Crowley. I wish I had more experience with Michael Sheen, so I could slot him into his role in my head, as I adore Aziraphale in the book and hope to love him in the series.
The elevator pitch for Good Omens is “What if Damien from The Omen was Willam Brown from Richmal Crompton’s Just William books?”. The Hellhound has just met William and The Outlaws in the quarry, and been transformed into William’s dog Jumble.
One of my favorite bits s how Anathema is suspicious about getting in the car with Az and Crowley. And then, when they are dropping her off at Jasmine Cottage, she hears Crowley hiss “Get in, angel!” and immediately relaxes.
Didn’t understand that joke at all as a tween, reading Good Omens for the first time, but on a later re-read, it made me cackle. By then I knew what shipping was, too.