By the Waters of Babylon Summary & Analysis

In the story’s opening paragraph, the protagonist and first-person narrator, John, recounts the laws of his tribe. It has been forbidden since the beginning of time, he says, to travel east, to cross the great river, or to visit or look at the Place of the Gods, which was destroyed in the Great Burning and is now populated by spirits and demons. Only priests and the sons of priests are allowed to visit the Dead Places, and even then, they only go to collect metal. After the metal is removed from the dead places, the priests and the metal must be ritually purified.

John tells us about the first time his father, a priest (and also named John), took him to collect metal from the Dead Places. John tells us that they went into an abandoned house where there were bones in a corner, and that though he felt afraid, John tried to hide his fear and act the way the son of a priest is supposed to act. John discovered that he could handle the metal without being harmed, and his father took this as a sign that John would become a priest one day.

John continued to visit the Dead Places and learned more about them, and eventually, he was no longer afraid of them.

The priests teach John chants, spells, and other secrets. He learns how to read and write in the “old way,” and how to heal wounds. John explains that though much of what the priests do is not really magic, his father says it’s all right to let other people believe that their work is magic. John is fascinated by all his new knowledge, and he is hungry to learn more about the gods and their past civilization.

John is proud of his tribe, The Hill People, and he mocks their rival tribe, The Forest People, for their ignorance. He laughs at how the Forest People eat grubs, and boasts that the Hill People spin wool into yarn and preserve old writings, and that their priests dress in white robes (all these qualities differentiating them from the Forest people). Yet he expresses a desire to learn even more than the priests of his tribe can teach him.

When John is no longer a boy, he tells his father that he is ready to go on his journey, a quest that will mark his initiation as a man and a priest within the tribe. John first undergoes a purification ritual. As part of the ritual, his father asks him about his dreams, and John describes a vision of the Place of the Gods. John tells the reader that he has always seen this vision.

John’s father warns John that this is a “strong” and dangerous dream, and reminds him that it is forbidden to travel east, cross the river, or go to the Place of the Gods. John affirms that he understands the laws, but adds to the reader, “it was my voice that spoke and not my spirit.” John’s father tells John that he will always be his son, even if he does not become a priest, and he sends John on his journey.

John leaves the village and waits for a sign. Just after dawn, he sees an eagle flying east. John knows that signs can be sent by bad spirits, so he decides to wait for another sign. Just before sunset, he sees three deer and a white fawn going east—this is a strong sign, so he follows them, even though traveling east is forbidden. When a panther attacks the fawn, John kills the panther with a single arrow. He takes this as a sign that he is meant to travel east on his journey.

John travels east for eight days, first along the god-roads and then through the forest, avoiding hunting parties of the Forest People. One night, when he camps near a Dead Place, he finds a knife in a dead house. Eventually, he reaches the sacred Ou-dis-san river, which no one in his tribe has ever seen before.

John prays before the river, then looks south and sees the Place of the Gods, an island filled with “mighty and ruined” towers “too big to be houses.” Afraid that the gods will see him, he returns to the edge of the forest and spends the night there.

John knows that he will die if he enters the Place of the Gods, but he also knows that if he turns back without fully satisfying his desire for new knowledge about the gods, he will never be content or at peace with himself. Though he is afraid to cross the river, he decides that he will do it anyway.

John weeps as he builds the raft he will use to cross the river to the Place of the Gods, paints his body for death, and says funerary prayers. He feels cold and clammy, but his ambition and desire for knowledge burns like a fire within him.

As he crosses the river, John sings his death song, in which he proclaims his courage and enumerates the challenges he has overcome during his journey. Yet, at this moment, John does not feel brave. For the first time on his journey he feels truly alone, and he realizes that the knowledge that he so prides himself on is not enough to prepare him for whatever lies ahead.

John has trouble steering the raft across the river. Just before he reaches the shores of the Place of the Gods, the raft overturns, but John manages to save his weapons, including the knife he found in the dead house, and his bow and arrows.

As he enters the Place of the Gods, John is amazed to discover that many of the things he had been told about it are false: the ground does not burn anyone who steps on it, and while it is true that the Place of the Gods is an island, it is not inhabited by evil spirits, and the air is not filled with enchanted fog. Instead, John sees ruined towers and “god-roads.” What is more, there do not seem to be any gods on the island.

Exploring the island further, John finds broken stone pillars and a ruined edifice carved with the letters UBTREAS. Nearby, he sees a ruined marble statue of a man or a god who as long hair pulled back into a ponytail. A cracked plinth says that the figure’s name is ASHING. Though John is not sure who ASHING is, he decides, out of caution and respect, to pray to the figure.

The Place of the Gods has very few trees: its landscape is almost entirely made from metal and stone towers, and John describes how many buildings are carved with words and numbers that he believes have magical properties. However, John sees many animals: a fish-hawk, butterflies, pigeons, wild cats, and eventually, wild dogs.

John explains that the gods did not hunt; instead, they ate food from magical jars. As a child, John once found some of this food in one of the Dead Places and tried it, but his father punished him, warning that the gods’ food can be poisonous to humans. Now, John decides that he will look for this kind of food rather than hunt since he has already done many things that were forbidden and come to no harm. Eventually, he finds fruits and an alcoholic drink that have been preserved glass jars, and after eating, he falls asleep.

When John wakes up, a large, wolf-like dog is watching him. He throws a stone in an attempt to frighten the dog away, but it does not seem to fear him. The dog follows John as he walks further along the god-roads, and John soon realizes not only that he is being followed by a whole pack of wild dogs, but that they are hunting him.

Just as the dogs begin to rush him, John finds a door into one of the towers (John also calls them “god-houses”) that opens. He slams the door behind him, shutting the dogs outside.

The building itself is strange and fascinating. John describes a narrow room with bronze doors without handles and, apparently, no way of being opened. After climbing many flights of stairs, he finds a door that he can open (the lock has been broken). It leads into an apartment. Before he explores the rooms, John stands in the “anteroom” by the entrance and tells the spirits who he believes live in this place that he is not a robber.

The rooms are dusty and stuffy, but appear untouched since the Time of the Gods. John describes the soft furniture and carpeting, and the paintings on the walls. He seems particularly struck by painting of flowers that appears blurry and abstract when viewed up close, but looks realistic when viewed from far away. The rooms are also full of books, and John takes this as a sign that the apartment was once inhabited by a wise god.

John also describes objects that he believes were once imbued with magic: a sink without water, and with things marked “hot” and “cold” that do not feel hot or cold to the touch; a stove without wood or a place to light a fire; another mysterious “machine” for cooking; and lamps without a wick or oil. John wishes he understood the magic that once made these things function.

John soon realizes that he will have to spend the night in the apartment. He is afraid to sleep in a Dead Place, but if he sleeps outside, he risks being attacked by the dogs. It gets dark, and though John has not yet explored all of the rooms, he decides to make a fire in the fireplace of a large room with windows overlooking the city. Weary, he soon falls asleep.

John wakes in the middle of the night. The fire has gone out and he thinks he hears voices and whispers. He tells us that though some may think that what happened next was a dream, he believes that the experience was the work of “strong magic.” John closes his eyes to try to go back to sleep, but soon he feels his spirit being drawn out of his body. John insists that he is not lying—as a priest and the son of a priest, he does not lie, and he believes that the spirits in the Dead Place wanted to speak to him. John tells us again that he felt his spirit being drawn out of his body, adding that he could look down and see his body lying in the room below.

Looking out through the windows, John is amazed to see that the City of the Gods is not dark, even though it is night. There are so many lights in the city—some of them blurred by motion—that John can barely see the stars. John is terrified and overwhelmed by the brightness of the lights, and by a strange roaring sound. Looking out on the city, John realizes that through some kind of powerful magic, he is seeing the city as it was in the Time of the Gods. John tells us that, if his spirit had been in his body when he had this vision, he believes that he would have died of shock. John watches as the gods and their chariots fill the streets, and he is amazed to see that they travel in every direction, even to the other side of the earth, building roads and tunnels—even flying!

The gods, John tells us, were restless, powerful, marvelous, and terrible, and they possessed vast knowledge and wisdom. John describes himself as child in comparison to the gods and says that if they had possessed any more knowledge, they would have been able to pull the moon out of the sky. Yet John knows, too, that the gods did not always use their knowledge well.

In his vision, John sees the gods’ “fate come upon them” in the shape of a terrible war. John emphasizes that this war was not like the skirmishes between the Hill People and the Forest People; while men die in those fights, the gods’ war brought devastating destruction on a scale that John finds difficult to describe. Fire fell out of the sky onto the people in the streets and toppled the towers, he tells us. The island was covered in a poisoned mist, and the gods ran through the streets in terror. Only a few of the gods escaped, and city became a Dead Place. The poison from the gods’ weapons remained in the ground for years. As John watches the gods dying before him, he weeps, and the city grows dark.

When John wakes the next morning, he attempts to make sense of his vision. He now understands that a war among the gods created the Dead Places, but he still does not understand what caused such terrible war and destruction. John looks through the apartment, hoping to find an answer, but the house itself puzzles him. John seems puzzled by his own puzzlement, too—even though he is a priest and the son of a priest, he finds he cannot completely understand his vision or the things in the apartment.

As he explores the apartment, John finds the dead god sitting in a chair by the window, as if he is looking out over the city. At first John is afraid to draw close to the body, but when he does, he studies the god’s face closely. He can’t tell the god’s age, but he sees from his expression that he was wise, sad, and brave. John realizes that god chose to stay in the city, watching the city die with the knowledge that he himself would die, too. In doing so, John says, the god stayed true to himself: he lost his life, but did not lose his spirit. Though the body is surprisingly well-preserved, John believes that if he touches him, the body will crumble into dust. And, as John studies the body, he realizes the god is in fact a man—that the city was built and inhabited by humans, not by gods or demons.

After he learns that the gods were, in fact, human, John tells us that he lost all of his fear. He returns home unafraid, fighting off the wild dogs and Forest People. After John is ritually purified once again, his father recognizes him as a man and a priest. John explains to his father that he went to the Place of the Gods and learned that the gods were humans, then asks his father to kill him for breaking the laws of the tribe. John’s father tells him that the laws change from generation to generation. It seems that, in making his journey, John has re-written the laws of the tribe.

John wants to share the knowledge he has acquired with the whole tribe, but his father convinces him not to, explaining that “if you eat too much truth at once, you may die of the truth.” John’s father suggests that, perhaps, the “gods” learned too much too quickly, and by doing so, they brought about their own destruction. John tells us that his experience as a priest has since shown him that his father was right.

Still, John tells us, he has ambitions to learn more about the “gods,” what they knew, and how they lived. Now, the priests go to the Dead Places to gather books as well as metal, and to study the “magic tools” in the houses from the “Time of the Gods.” John vows that when he replaces his father as head priest (presumably, after his father’s death) he will lead his tribe to the Place of the Gods. Saying so, John calls the Place of the Gods by its name for the first and only time in the story—“newyork.” There, John says, his tribe will learn more about the gods ASHING, Licoln, Biltmore, and Moses, and they will rebuild the city.