The narrative covers 20 centuries of European and American culture, and prominently features the construction of El Escorial by Philip II.

Its main character is King Felipe II, his family and court, his friends the peasant girl Celestina and the student Ludovico, and three mysteriously identical youths, each with twelve toes and a red cross on their back.

Hieronymus Bosch triptych painting The Garden of Earthly Delights that appears in the novel is another parallel to the structure and themes of the three-part novel.

[1] Robert Coover reviewed the book for The New York Times, and wrote: "Carlos Fuentes is a world-famous author, serious, provocative, controversial even, inventive, widely considered Mexico's most important living novelist, maybe the greatest ever--but the world is full of doubters and perhaps Fuentes wished to silence them once and for all, burying them under the sheer weight and mastery of his book.

Coover had reservations about how Fuentes seems to condemn the ascetic lifestyle that is to isolate oneself from the outside world in order to strive for perfection, while Terra Nostra in his view appears to be a work born out of exactly such a commitment.

Its conception is truly grand, its perceptions often unique, its energy compelling and the inventiveness and audacity of some of its narrative maneuvers absolutely breathtaking.