Horacio Oliveira

Horacio is the main character and narrator of the novel, which follows him from Paris to Buenos Aires, where he was born and grew up. When yhe reader first meets him, he is in his forties and living a bohemian life as a writer in Paris. He is living with his mistress, La Maga, a young woman from Montevideo. They spend their nights with the Serpent Club, a coterie of artists and intellectuals that dedicate themselves to drinks, creating, listening to jazz, and engaging in dialectical arguments.

Horacio is one of the founders of the Club, and he is constantly in competition with the mysterious and arrogant Ossip Gregorovius, who is in love with La Maga. Horacio cares for La Maga, but he grows irate, constantly having to explain abstract ideas and concepts to her. When Maga moves her child, Rocamadour, into their small flat, he begins...