Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution

Robin and the others go to Professor Lowell’s Hampstead house to regroup. Robin discovers papers that show Lovell and Babel connived to create a pretext for a war with China. Babel is directly engaged in managing the government, wars, and even the slave trade abroad. Military intervention would force China to accept trade with Great Britain. Robin, Ramy, and Victoire decide to give these papers to the Hermes Society. Now that they know what’s happening, returning to college seems pointless.

After Letty overhears them planning, she insists that British people are naturally decent and will prevent war once they know about the plot. Robin realizes that Letty is either naïve or willfully blind to who the British really are. He wonders how Victoire deals with this attitude and even more overt racism. When the three give examples of how frequently they deal with racism and racial slights, Letty breaks down into tears, “and after everything they had told Letty, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comfort” (357).

Returning to England forces Robin and the others to lie to and betray many people. When they return to Oxford, they tell everyone that Lovell is recuperating from an illness in Hampstead. At Lovell’s house in Oxford, Robin lies to Mrs. Piper and realizes she will be out of a job now that Lovell is dead. He leaves messages at all the message drop spots he knows to tell Hermes about the plot for war and the existence of incriminating papers.

Robin returns to Babel, where he overhears Lovell’s wife begging Professor Playfair for money; Lovell missed his last three maintenance payments to her and their children. Robin and the other three are forced to attend a faculty party at which Lovell is also expected. At the party, Playfair corners Robin. He claims he is in Hermes and knows Lovell isn’t in Hampstead. Playfair knows nothing about Hermes based on the questions he asks Robin, so Robin warns the other three to flee. Anthony Ribben—not dead after all—uses a secret passage to help them escape.

Anthony takes them to the society’s headquarters at the Old Library, hidden in plain sight on campus because no one at Oxford wants to assume responsibility for it. The space houses the society, but it also includes research on endangered languages and others not traditionally studied at Babel. Beyond this work, the society uses sabotage and nonviolent means to advance its anticolonialist work.

Robin and his cohort contribute as the members discuss how to stop the war. Most think appealing to Britain’s self-interest and showing that the war will be long instead of short will turn the government against the war. Letty agrees persuasion is the best way to win the argument, but she thinks appeals to morality will work. Griffin is the one holdout who believes only violence will end colonialism. He thinks they should take hostages in Babel Tower, which would also allow them to take control over the silver, the source of Britain’s power.

The society decides to lobby different government factions with appeals to Britain’s self-interest. The group also creates anti-war pamphlets that fly around until someone grabs them. They hope they can convince the public to side with them. Griffin thinks this is naïve. He arms Robin with a gun and shows him how to shoot it. At first, Robin rejects the gun, but he is amazed at how powerful shooting it makes him feel. When Robin rejoins the others, he feels the sense of belonging he always hoped to feel at Babel. Griffin leaves for a sabotage and blackmail mission in Glasgow, and the society makes plans to get Lovell’s incriminating papers, which Robin left in his college rooms.

Lobbying, sabotaging silver-dependent goods, and blackmailing vulnerable government members slowly erodes support for the war. Newspapers identify Robin, Ramy, and Victoire (but not Letty) as Lovell’s murderers, so the three are confined to the Old Library. Anthony and the older members of Hermes are about to depart to complete some final tasks in the campaign to end the war. They leave a list of contacts and message drops in case they don’t return from their missions.

As they are talking, Letty disappears. She returns with the police, who bomb the library, killing Anthony and his group. Letty has a gun that she expertly handles. She grabs for the list of contacts and message drops. In the struggle for them, she shoots and kills Ramy. Victoire manages to tip the list into the fire. Robin goes from shock to “black, consuming hatred” (410) that makes him want to kill Letty. For too long, they’ve all “tiptoed around a complicated tangle of love and jealousy that ensnared them all” (410). Victoire restrains him.

The capture of Robin and the others results in more violence. Robin is in jail, and Sterling Jones questions him. Like Letty, Jones thinks the lack of people of color in Babel is “a matter of individual fortunes instead of systematic oppression, and neither could see outside of the perspective of people who looked and spoke just like them” (416). Sterling uses silver-enhanced implements to torture Robin to gain information on Hermes. When that doesn’t work, Sterling pretends that their captors will kill Victoire if Robin doesn’t talk. Robin tells Sterling that there are other members at other schools of translation, but Robin hears what he thinks is someone shooting Victoire. Robin finally breaks, and Sterling contemptuously calls him an animal.

Griffin rescues both Robin and Victoire. The jail is on fire. Sterling Jones confronts them as they make their escape, so Griffin pulls a gun on Sterling. It seems the two have a longstanding rivalry. Kuang uses a footnote to explain that Robin had no idea that Griffin, Sterling, Anthony, and Evie used to have the same tight bond that Robin and his cohort had; Griffin accidentally killed Evie, and without the support Robin has, Griffin “whittled this capacity to kill into a sharp and necessary weapon” (429). Sterling and Griffin fatally wound each other. Robin tries to revive Griffin with a silver bar, but his effort fails. Robin concludes that this last face-off is the end of a long rivalry and cycle of violence. Robin and Victoire run away.

Robin and Victoire run to one of the Hermes bolt-holes. Robin finally feels free of Babel’s lure. He realizes he was a fool to think he could be a part of Babel, a place built on silver and power earned on the backs of exploited indigenous and enslaved Black people. The college is rotten at the root. Griffin was right: “Power did not lie at the tip of the pen. Power did not work against its interests. Power could only be brought to heal by acts of defiance […] With brute, unflinching force. With violence” (432). Oxford scholars could read about natural rights and freedom, but they couldn’t recognize their lack right in front of them because of their privilege. College is frivolous, and Robin knows he can never go back. He and Victoire instead have a vision of the “tower in ruins” (432).