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Thread: omens in literature

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    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Lightbulb omens in literature

    what omens have you come across in books?

    the first that comes to mind is

    good omens~ terry pratchet~

    The book is a comedy about the birth of the son of Satan, the coming of the End Times and the attempts of the angel Aziraphale and the demon (Anthony J) Crowley to avert them, having become accustomed to their comfortable situations in the human world.
    Last edited by cacian; 07-16-2014 at 04:46 PM.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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    Registered User kev67's Avatar
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    There were several omens in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. A rooster crowed in the afternoon when Angel and Tess had just wed. Alec persuades Tess to swear an oath on what he thinks is a religious monument, but it turns out the monument was cursed. Later, Tess hears the d'Urberville coach, which is a portent of doom.
    According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
    Charles Dickens, by George Orwell

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    Tidings of Literature Whosis's Avatar
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    Early in Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, a spider burns up in a candle, which is seen as a bad omen. Rain is a great bad omen.

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    Card-carrying Medievalist Lokasenna's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    what omens have you come across in books?

    the first that comes to mind is

    good omens~ terry pratchet~

    The book is a comedy about the birth of the son of Satan, the coming of the End Times and the attempts of the angel Aziraphale and the demon (Anthony J) Crowley to avert them, having become accustomed to their comfortable situations in the human world.
    One of my favourite novels... never fails to have me laughing out loud.

    Of course, omens are a recurring motif in so much literature that it would be difficult to list them. In the case of Gaiman and Pratchett, the title is obviously a reference to the film The Omen, which they are conciously parodying.
    "I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche

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