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sebastianravkin · 22 days

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Another Book Recommendation for 2024

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Seems obvious and possibly pointless for the Tumblr audience, but hear me out.

CONTENT WARNING: mention of dark moments in LGBTQ+ history. If you would like to avoid, skip Point #1.

The below notes reflect a discussion concerning the book Good Omens I had with a group of my undergraduate interns over a couple of lunches last semester. Given that they all loved the show, I had assumed they had all read the book. Not all of them had, and for those that did, their knowledge of when the book was originally published and an understanding of its historical context was surprisingly limited. I thought that others may be interested in these points, and so am sharing them here.

1) *SKIP TO AVOID CONTENT WARNING* To understand the impact of Good Omens when it was published in 1990 on the LGBTQIA+ community, it helps to understand the cultural environment at the time of its publishing, at least in the United States.

The book came out towards the end of the height of the AIDS epidemic (1981 - early 90s). I can not stress enough how terrifying this was for the LGBTQIA+ community to live through. People were afraid - of dying, of watching loved ones die, of being separated from their loved ones as they died, of being ostracized, of being denied medical help, of being attacked and beaten. While there was a short fluorescence of nominal acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community during the 1970s, the societal response to the AIDS epidemic was a huge step backwards. People became cruel(er), whether out of fear or ignorance or opportunity.

Good Omens came quietly onto the scene during this time, providing an alternate universe in which a gay-presenting angel (and his gender-fluid demon friend) could live in a world without the AIDS crisis. At the same time, this angel did live in fear of his world literally ending, and really would like to have just gotten back to his comfy chair and his Regency silver snuffboxes. Escapism reading at its best, really.

In addition, the book was published in 1990, so before many of the cultural moments that helped lead to social change but are now taken for granted. Such as . . . .

-Freddie Mercury died of AIDS in November 1991 (which, by the way, means there was a very short window of time where people were reading Good Omens while he was still alive).

-Sir Elton John came out in 1992

-“Don’t ask, don’t tell” became official policy of the U.S. Military in 1993 (finally repealed in 2011)

-the establishment of LGBTQIA+ centers on college campuses surged in the mid-1990s

-Ellen came out on her show in 1997

-Will and Grace first aired in 1998

-Matthew Shepard was murdered in 1998 (the Federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act bearing his name was not passed until 2007).

2) The book is queer coded for 1990. As queer coded as the show is for current times.

I have heard multiple comments from GenZ students along the lines of ‘there is nothing queer about the book’, and I have read commentary that Neil Gaiman caved to fan pressure in modernizing the script for the show. But I have also heard comments from GenX peers, including one of whom said “it was the gayest book I read in the 90s”. I have highlighted 15 passages in my teaching copy of the book that would have been queer-coded in 1990, 12 of which would go unnoticed today as far as I can tell based on discussions with many of my Millennial and GenZ students.

It is important to keep in mind that the vocabulary of the 1980s and 90s relating to the LGBTQIA+ community was exceedingly limited; Mr. Gaiman and Sir Pratchett worked within this limited vocabulary, and were working within the stereotypes of the times, to portray Crowley and Aziraphale. And readers are meant to love them. Possibly more importantly, the derogatory comments concerning Aziraphale come from unlikable characters, and so the reader not only ends up feeling defensive of the angel but also does not want to be associated with those who hold negative opinions of him. I can think of few better ways to create social change.

In terms of the show adaptation, whenever I watch a movie or show based on a book, my first concern is whether or not the adaptation makes me feel the way the book did. I am not an artist, so I do not know how one translates the written to the visual and I do not envy those attempting to do so. But I do know that successful adaptations are almost never a one-to-one translation. What I can say in this context is that, to me, the show does feel like the book in terms of its themes, its humor, its timely social commentary. So whyever and however Mr. Gaiman updated it, I would argue it was successful.

3) It is my understanding that Good Omens is the first book written by cisgendered heterosexual males for a general audience that portrays a gay-presenting character and a gender-fluid character as main characters in a positive light that does not end in a tragic way. This is huge. This is Captain Kirk and Uhuru’s kiss huge.

Historically, LGBTQIA+ people rarely get positive representation in mainstream media. Rather, LGBTQIA+ characters in literature were often portrayed as villains in early writing, and are often used as comedic relief in more recent work. When there is a sympathetic main character, their story usually ends in tragedy. While tragic stories are very much a reality for many LGBTQIA+ people, it is incredibly important to also have stories that do not end in heartbreak or death. And it is also incredibly important for LGBTQIA+ characters to be part of the norm in main stream story telling as this leads to broader social acceptance. Good Omens provided LGBTQIA+ readers with a sense of belonging in the greater world, while ‘normalizing’ the happy existence of LGBTQIA+ people to a broader readership. This type of representation, presented by heterosexual white cisgendered male authors (at the top of the power structure in 1990) is a key moment in the slow but steady grind leading to social change.

In summary, read the book. Whether you are a fan of the show or not, and regardless of your generation, this book has a lot going for it. Above and beyond its importance to the LGBTQIA+ community, the book includes broader commentary on religion, good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, and identity in general. The menacing humor of Gaiman and the loving satire of Pratchett is a combination that is unequaled. The book is funny, thought-provoking, well-written, and has a lot of great characters above and beyond a particular angel and demon (who are only in about 1/3 of the book). And as you read it, understand its historical context, and love it for the role it played in getting us to this cultural point in time.

#good omens #evelyntyler #books #books and reading #book reccomendation #neil gaiman #terry pratchett

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