Indeed it can even be read front to back in its entirety. The story centers around Horacio Oliveira, an Argentine living a fragmentary life in Paris and the Buenos Aires. The many episodes from Oliveira's life can be read in any variety of sequences without altering the gist of the novel. Literary and philosophical meditations abound in this intellectual's story. It is a very literary novel, in every sense, and literature is central to it, from the name-dropping of countless authors to the influences various works exert.
Jazz also plays a role, and politics and specifically the state of Argentina and the state of exile.
The text is often compared to hypertext novels, in how one can jump from scene to scene, chapter to chapter. He is the author of numerous acclaimed experimental works.