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When the Metatron goes to get a coffee at Nina’s shop, he asks her if anyone ever asks for death—a reference to the name of the establishment: Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death! But it also puts one in mind of Suzy Izzard’s stand-up routine Dress to Kill, where she suggests that the Church of England might offer supplicants the option of “cake or death” being far less efficient than the Spanish Inquisition. Ok, for S2, the most interesting connection is that matchboxes are used to communicate from one character to another; I can see this an inspiration for the matchbox Gabriel uses. But the idea of the crow as messenger lies behind an alternative interpretation. Some people believe that the appearance of a solitary crow is a message from a deceased loved one. As such, it can bring consolation in times of grief. 2. Many Crows
Crowley says that he can’t hear nightingales (which they heard at the end of season 1, and is how the book ends – sob). Crowley kisses Aziraphale and he infuriatingly says; “I forgive you.” Crowley responds with “don’t bother.” Damn, this book was terrific! I don't know why I didn't stumble across it earlier, given it was published in 1992 and was adapted by the BBC as a miniseries in 1996 (oh wait .... the 90's were the years that got eaten by my "professional career"... the mindless TV years). Anyway, no matter. I enjoyed the book. Some parts of it are hilarious and others are tragic. The writing is excellent and the characters are very real. I recommend a reader take his/her time to read it, just like sipping a fine wine.
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It's so easy to choose this famous opening line for starting a review of Crow Road, and therein lies the danger of focusing only on the sarcasm, the tongue-in-cheek, flippant running commentary provided by Prentice McHoan on the history of his family and on his own growing up process, as angsty and self-conscious and annoying as only smartypants teenagers can be. But there's more going on under the provocative surface, and for me the last line of the quote is the key to the novel: Prentice is obsessed with death, not without reason, seeing as he looses a lot more of his relatives and friends before the end of the novel - can't say who exactly, spoilers and all that ... The quest to define his place in the real world and to come to terms with loss will overshadow the more conventional storyline of Prentice chasing girls and learning about sex. Frankly, I believe this romantic angle could have been handled better : not only could I guess the outcome right from the start, but the final revelations made me laugh at the silly instead of touching my tender bones Morse code WTF . Prentice did have a nice turn of phrase when he describes the girl he loves : the stunning, the fabulous, the golden-haired, vellus faced, diamond-eyed Verity, upwardly mobile scionette of the house of Urvill, the jewel beside the jowls; the girl who, for me, had put the lectual in intellectual, and phany in epiphany and the ibid in libidinous!
Encounters that are more obviously out of the ordinary might be more likely to hold a spiritual message. But that doesn’t mean that what appears on the surface as an everyday occurrence can’t also have a deeper meaning. Paradoxically, though, The Crow Road also includes my favourite supporting character in all of Banks' books, Prentice's father, Kenneth McHoan. I know most people love Rory and his globe trotting bohemianism, but Kenneth is a cooler guy and a great Dad. From his River Game (a home made, violence free game of trade economics) politics and love for his son, to his children's stories, atheism and wonderfully fitting death, Kenneth was the part of The Crow Road I longed to read. When he wasn't there I was thinking about him, and when he was there I never wanted his part to end. Plus, I kinda wish he'd been my Dad. The most famous example of this is magpies, where there’s even a popular rhyme to help you remember the meaning. “One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy.” It transpires that Beelzebub had given Gabriel the fly and told him it was a container, in case he should need it. Gabriel puts his memories into the fly, before having his memory wiped in heaven. He then arrives at Aziraphale’s door naked, holding the empty cardboard box and with amnesia. Two crows are considered to be an omen of good news. Three signify that there’ll soon be a wedding in the family. And four crows may mean that wealth and prosperity lie in your future.The appearance of "The Crow Road" in Good Omens season 2's ending, where Crowley gives it to Muriel, holds symbolic significance in relation to the overall storyline. It reflects the heartbreaking finale for Aziraphale and Crowley and delves into themes of unrequited love and defying societal norms. It turns out that the reason Gabriel had left heaven is because they wanted another war with hell and another Armageddon. Gabriel had been secretly meeting with Beelzebub (Shelley Conn) in various bars and pubs on earth, and they had become close. Therefore Gabriel doesn’t want a war with hell. Episode 4’s minisode “Nazi Zombie Flesheaters’ stars Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Mark Gatiss, a.k.a. The League of Gentlemen. Pemberton and Gatiss are reprising their roles from season one in zombie form, while Shearsmith, who played Shakespeare last time, now gets to share the screen with his fellow Gentlemen as the demon Furfur. Crows, as we’ve seen, are skilled problem solvers. A crow appearing to you in this way could be a message to tap into your own instincts to overcome barriers. Aziraphale excitedly proposes to Crowley that he come to heaven with him, as his second-in-command. But Crowley wants to be away from the ‘toxic’ heaven and hell, he wants them to run away together and be an “us.” Crowley says “you can’t leave this bookshop” and Aziraphale responds; “nothing lasts forever”– which is almost as heartbreaking as Fleabag’s “it’ll pass.”
And the man is away the crow road himself. One of my favourite Scottish authors, all we can do is feel blessed he has left behind such a wealth of stories and talent for us to remember to him with. And Banks just doesn’t seem to stop with his somber yet somehow hilarious prose, drawing us deeply into the McHoan family, and allowing us to explore their histories, their personalities, and their reprehensible yet utterly relatable behaviours.
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Aziraphale asks The Metatron what the next part of God’s ineffable plan is, and he says something about The Second Coming. Which surely must be teeing up a Good Omens season 3? Right, Neil Gaiman, right? We absolutely cannot end Good Omens on this heartbreaking ending between Aziraphale and Crowley, no siree. These were the days of fond promise, when the world was very small and there was still magic in it. He told them stories of the Secret Mountain and the Sound that could be Seen, of the Forest drowned by Sand and the trees that were time-stilled waters. Yeah,’ I said, ‘I think so.’ I studied the road for a bit, then looked up, disappointed. ‘So it doesn’t really work after all?’ Crowley joins forces with Aziraphale to hide Gabriel from the minions of both heaven and hell. But in episode 5 of the fantasy series, a large gang of demons led by Shax (Miranda Richardson) has descended on the bookshop, trying to get in and get to Gabriel. More members of the Good Omens season 2 cast– Maggie (Maggie Service) and Nina (Nina Sosanya) – are also in the bookshop, which was hosting a Jane Austen style ball. Once everything turns hellish, they help Aziraphale keep the demons at bay.
Telling us straight or through his stories, my father taught us that there was, generally, a fire at the core of things, and that change was the only constant, and that we – like everybody else – were both the most important people in the universe, and utterly without significance, depending, and that individuals mattered before their institutions, and that people were people, much the same everywhere, and when they appeared to do things that were stupid or evil, often you hadn’t been told the whole story, but that sometimes people did behave badly, usually because some idea had taken hold of them and given them an excuse to regard other people as expendable (or bad), and that was part of who we were too, as a species, and it wasn’t always possible to know that you were right and they were wrong, but the important thing was to keep trying to find out, and always to face the truth. Because truth mattered. There are some parallels between the significance accorded to crows and magpies. But there are some differences too – and sadly, there’s no rhyme for crows to help us! This reminded me of John Irving at his 1970s‒80s peak: a sprawling coming-of-age story, full of quirky people and events, that blends humor and pathos. In all honesty, I didn’t need the mystery element on top of the character study, but it adds direction to what is otherwise a pleasant if lengthy meander through the decades with the McHoans. I particularly appreciated how Prentice’s view of death evolves: at first he’s with Uncle Hamish, believing there has to be something beyond death – otherwise, what makes human life worthwhile? But Kenneth’s atheism seeps in thanks to the string of family deaths and the start of the Gulf War. “They were here, and then they weren’t, and that was all there was,” Prentice concludes; the dead live on only in memory, or in the children and work they leave behind. I can’t resist quoting this whole paragraph, my favorite passage from the novel: The Crow Road" explores themes of death, faith, morality, and self-discovery, resonating with Aziraphale and Crowley's experiences in Good Omens. It also features a mystery that parallels Gabriel's arrival and memory loss in the series.Later on he reads “It was the day my grandmother exploded”, which is the opening line of Iain Banks’ The Crow Road, a novel about murder and love, the television adaptation of which featured the Twelfth Doctor and one of the stars of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Peter Capaldi. This is the same book that Crowley gives to Muriel to read in episode six.
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