The first section, which is itself the prologue, describes the world of a pre-war Bucharest, as narrated by an aging, potentially dying, author while focusing on the improbable and explicitly impossible story of a homeless young man who serves as the stubborn center of progressively more absurd games of Russian Roulette which become progressively more peopled by the wealthy upper-crust of the capital.

This section has a famous scene that makes the reader feel voyeur into the world of Proust when the main character falls into "unbearable nostalgia" by virtue of a bright pink lighter.

The final part of the main portion of this book is centered around Nana, a middle aged woman engaged in an affair with a college student, as well as her memories of being 12 years old, when she was visited by a mother and son pair of gigantic skeletons.

Jorge Luis Borges, Bruno Schultz, Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, Milan Kundera, and Milorad Pavić, to mention just a few.

"[1] Laura Savu wrote about Cărtărescu in World Literature Today: "His intellectual fervor, dazzling linguistic play, and visceral prose...often touch a cultural nerve.