His world view based on logic, probability, and technology is challenged by a series of incredible coincidences as his repressed past and chance occurrences come together to break up his severely rational, technically oriented ideology.

In Caracas in early summer 1957, Walter Faber compiles a report on the events of the previous few months.

Faber had received an offer from Escher Wyss to work in Baghdad and he accepted it; he and Hanna split up.

Faber returns from the plantation to New York City, while ultimately en route to Paris for a series of conferences, and encounters his married mistress, Ivy.

These notes cover the period immediately after Sabeth dies, when he flies the following day to New York and then onwards to Caracas where he revisits Herbert Henke and compiles the report of Part One.

Technical breakdowns mark key points in the story (and Walter's life) right up to the upcoming operation that he mentions at the very end, which is thus implied to result in his death.

Faber's dismissal of literature and of anything to do with myths and the arts also plays into the theme of fate versus coincidence, which is preeminent in the plot.

Faber is oblivious to the various mythological motifs and twists which bring his story close to a modern tragedy, even as it unfolds in Greece and Rome of all places.

This dichotomy is reflected in a larger series of seeming antinomies: faith or reason, modern knowledge or ancient beliefs, free will or predestination.

Through travel, Walter is able to avoid permanent connections, to escape responsibilities, and to remain completely unknown and unjudged.

The novel was made into a 1991 film, Voyager, directed by Volker Schlöndorff, and starring Sam Shepard and Julie Delpy.