"DONDE LOS ÁRBOLES CANTAN", Laura Gallego. Reseña y análisis

 Review and personal analysis of the novel “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet (Contains Spoilers)

            “Good Omens”…A masterpiece both in its comedy and emotivity as in the reflections it presents us.
            From the beggining of the story, we are introduced to the dilema of “Free will” and the (sometimes undistinguishable) line between “Right” and “Wrong”. All of this adquires more depth and irony when we know the ones who are asking themselves the questions are not some lost humans who are reflecting on the meaning of life, but in fact they are a demon and an angel (And an eleven year old boy who happens to be the Anthichrist). We’ve got an angel (Aziraphael) and a demon (Crowley) who are, you could say, best friends. Our vision of these kind of creatures and their way of living changes abruptly in the exact moment they both seem to agree in not having what is called “Free will”, which, technically, only demons are deprived of. Both of their worlds are ruled by power hierarchys and in neither of them it’s allowed to question their superiors, they have to stick to “Great Plan”, which was written from the very begginning. However, everytime they speak about it, both demon and angel find themselves against a wall, completely lost in their purposes and the real motives behind their actions. It’s not until the apocalypse or “Armagedon” announces its son arrival that they start considering, for the first time, acting according their own will to sabe a world they couldn’t help but get fond of over the centuries, and whose ending doesn’t make sense for any both sides to them. We can constantly notice the almost tyrannical profile of those who Aziraphale and Crowley serve (God and Satan). This story defies and puts upside down some of the ancient beliefs about Heaven and Hell, and the way they both work.
            Here is where topics such as war, ecology, and the damage we humans cause to the world (among other issues) take place in. But what’s even more wonderful about these is that we get to see them through the eyes and mind of an eleven year old boy. Adam Young, to whom being the antichrist fits very well once we notice the incredible maturity he has for his age, that matches with his insatiable curiosity and reason. To him and his group of Friends questioning everything, even the changes around them, starts like a game, but one they take very seriously, specially Adam.
            One of the many memorable and important details of this novel are the continuous historical references, which we can appreciate in different moments, specially in those when the narrator tells us about the (mostly shared) past of Crowley and Aziraphale and their relationship on earth through the centuries, starting when they met in the garden of Eden. We can even recognize one of the clearest references when Adam Young and his group of friends, better known as the gang of the “Them”, are playing pretending to be the Spanish Inquisition after having the suspicion that a witch is living in their neighbourhood, Lower Tadfield. This, of course, before Little Adam Young finds out by himself that the witch has a name (Anathema Device) and that she is a more reasonable and likeable woman than he and his friends had thought she was.   
            You see, the wonderful games the Them play under the leadership of Adam are so much more than that. They are, one could say, a space for reflection and constant learning, so much of it that even one of its members points out that he learns even more (and more interesting) things with his friends than he does at school. The conversations of the Them go from “The Spanish Inquisition”, “The lost city of Atlantis” and the uninterested environmental impact made by humans (mostly grown ups) to the world they will inherit, to moral debates about the difference between right and wrong, and about how far they are willing and allowed to get to protect the world they live in. It’s Adam, most of the times, who starts these debates without even trying. Still, what I couldn’t help but adore about Adam is the fact that he does not only question his actions, feelings and thoughts, but he also listens and respects his friends’s ones, because they are what matter the most to him. We must not forget that, Antichrist or not, Adam is only eleven, and yet he always seem to understand better than everyone the nature of the human being, of the world that surrounds him, of his powers and even the nature of those who are not precisely human.
            Coming back to Aziraphale and Crowley, what fascinated me about them i show the authors got us as readers to know them in such a Deep level that we could almost see their human side. Just like our little Antichrist, these two friends can’t help but questioning the rules of the worlds they belong to, which they’ve been following blindly for centuries. As I mentioned in the beggining of the review, one of the issues they deal with is “Free will”, I’ll leave a short piece of dialogue about it:
-Aziraphael: People could not become truly holy, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitely wicked.
-Crowley: That would only work if everyone had the same opportunities. It couldn’t work if someone was born in a muddy shack and another one in a castle.
-Aziraphale: That’s the thing, the lower you are, the more opportunities you have.
-Crowley: That’s crazy.
            If there’s another thing I couldn’t help but love about the relationship between Aziraphael and Crowley is how much they know and appreciate one another. Even if in most of the book the signs are very subtle, but clear. Even when they are so different and, at the same time, quite alike, we can see that there’s more between them than being used to eachother’s Company, there’s a true care and affection for eachother, as well as respect. There are two specific scenes (for me) in which you can recognize this even if it’s in a more subtle way. And no, I’m not talking about the scene when they have lunch together and Aziraphale eats “Deviled eggs” while Crowley orders an “Angel cake”, nor that one in pages 209 and 210 when they confess their feelings in a funny way. The first would be that one when Crowley, even though he’s used to being alone, tells to a nervous and distracted Aziraphael “We’ll be in touch. Shall we?”, as if it was a wish for him. The angel doesn’t notice the urge in the demon’s voice when he says it, but I as reader couldn’t help but noticing, even more when the narrator tells us seconds after this that Crowley, suddenly felt very lonely. And the second scene would be that when Aziraphale, after he just discovered where the Apocalypse is going to take place in, thinks about calling Crowley first, and not his people. The demon is the first thought that goes through his head when he thinks about sharing this important information he found, even if he later realices that it would bring him a lot of trouble. Even if it’s not explicit, to me their devotion for and to eachother is bigger than the one they have for their supperiors.
            I’ve mentioned before the wonderful and sublime comedic carácter of this novel, which is one of its strengths. It even gets to mock itself in a scene where Anathema Device is looking desperately for a lost book: “She even tried to look for it with the romantic method of acting as if giving up, sitting on the ground and laying her glance over a patch of earth which, if she had been in a decent narrative, should have contained the book. It didn’t”.  The authors joke about how good that cliché or convenience could’ve taken place in that scene, but it simply doesn’t. If there’s something Neil Gaiman is very good at is turning the expected into the unexpected, specially when it comes to humour. Another detail that I would like to point out about the authors is how well they balance different types of characterization and descriptions, for example indirect characterization through motion and actions, which tends to be more dynamic for the reader. They’re also very good at balancing “Screen time”, since they give us a lot of points of view that will keep changing and switching from character to character during the whole story. It is a very good way of keeping a good pace, specially since the book has a large cast of characters and we get to accompany them all through their paths and preparation for the exquisite and gradually well built climax that is the Apocalypse.
            I would like to end this personal review speaking about my favourite character, Adam Young. I think what impacts me the most about Adam is not only that in most cases (at least in my opinion) he’s right and able to perceive all the damage we do to the world, but the fact that he’s a child. Despite of knowing he’s the Antichrist, that looses importance when (as in my personal case) we get to love him and care about him. He is a child who we’ve known since the moment of his birth, and who we got to see learning, playing with his friends and growing up to slowly realice (at his short age) the corruption and the world he and his friends live in.
            The fact that the Antichrist is only a child and he experiences (at first) the need of destroying the world because of the love he has for it, so he can make a new and better one for him and his friends is wonderful, and it really gets to you as a reader once you are fully invested in the story. Adam Young doesn’t want to burn everything down just because he can, but because he wants his beloved world to be protected as it should, and he thinks about building a new one, properly this time, and giving each one of his friends a part of it. Keeping this in mind, one of the moments that made my blood froze was when Aziraphale said that the Antichrist needed to be killed, but of course he didn’t know at that time that it was an eleven year old boy who just wanted a better world to live in. As a reader, I suffered with Adam the moment when his powers start functioning inside him, as he tries to understand the nature of what he was born as, which was forced upon him, without him being able to decide anything about it. To me, the key moment for Adam is when his friends start getting away from him, scared, and, as the book says, “His ears listened with horror to the words that came out of his mouth”. The last thing Adam wants it’s to hurt his friends or make them go away from him, and so his internal battle begins, between who he was born to be and who he wants to be. After a long and reflective chat with his friends, like the ones they always used to share, he gets to the conclussion of picking his own side, neither Hell’s or Heaven’s, but his own path. Definitely one of my favourite pieces of dialogue in the novel is the encounter between Adam, Death, Metatron and Beelzebub, when, in the most eloquent way, the Young boy puts their world upside down, making them all question the innefability of the “Great Plan” they’ve been following only because it’s written (Pages 109 and 204 to 206).
            If you’re interested in subtle humour, a large and deep cast of characters with equally profound relationships, and topics such as heaven and hell, demons and angels, the apocalypse and intense debates about our nature and our beliefs, “Good Omens” is definitely the book for you.