Plot Overview
The novel opens with the narrator (Mario) explaining how the earth has finished and he's the only human left alive.
Then he tells the story of Homer, who was born to poor perents in an unknown country.
The child flies after a dollar bill one day and they think he's an angel, because the wings of angels were made to chase dollars.
The family emigrates to Colombia where Homer helps his parents in their shop but they die, leaving him almost destitute.
Homer buys two suitcases and some goods. He goes to the slums where he sells his merchandise to poor people and without any
interest.
One day he meets an Indian who gives him a shrunken head. Homer sends the head to a shop in New York where they pay him a
lot of money for it.
He asks the man to bring him more heads until he finishes with the tribe.
Jaramillo (a journalist friend) goes with Homer to the jungle to find the Indians.
They fly to the jungle and find a ghost town with wild dogs and pigs.
It rains and the waters flood the town. As they seek refuge in a hut, Homer finds a secret passage with a coffin and a box
on the floor.
As the ceiling collapses, they have to run out of the hut and into the flooded streets.
Homer has a look at the box once he's in the helicopter and finds a roll of manuscripts inside it.
Homer sees the word seven in Spanish,appearing a few times in the text.
They fly back to the city where Homer tries to decipher the manuscripts but he feels ill and has to rest on his boxes.
He puts the manuscripts in his safe and decides to forget about them
After he buys a few boats, he trades in tax free goods to sell in his shop, but Homer doesn't eat to save money and feels
ill.
Then he marries to himself in a ceremony attended by his employees so that he won't starve to death.
He gives permission to himself to open a few tins of food after his marriage and his health improves.
Jaramillo sits at a table in Homer's cellar to study the manuscripts one day.
Homer falls in love with a girl he sees in the street.
She's called Lola and makes him crazy. He has a bath and buys a second hand suit for Lola.
He barks in the night when he's nervous and one of the neighbours pays money for Homer to bark in his backyard.
He tells Jaramillo to leave the cellar but the man is dead to the world.
Homer phones his girlfriend after he finds a telephone number in his pockets and she comes to take the journalist home later.
Homer starts a new business enterprise. He has decided to build a few mud houses without any conveniences for poor widows.
He makes lots of money from the widow's pain and the women bring food to Homer when he's sick, but somebody tells Lola.
She is angry because of his avarice and tells a sergeant who used to be her boyfriend to collect her from work.
The sergeant beats him up and Homer runs back to his shop where he rests on his boxes.
He refuses to go to a doctor and hates all women and their sergeants.
The second war world starts and Homer becomes a warrior. He travels to New York, where he gets in contact with a colony from
his country.
The American government gives him arms to take to Europe in his ships but he sells them to South American countries.
One of his ships sinks in the Mediterranean Sea and Homer was supposed to be in it. The entire world mourns him.
Homer hears the news of his death after selling his arms to another South American country.
He travels to the Balearic Islands where he pays for someone to leave him in a small boat in the Mediterranean Sea for one
day, but he's not rescued for three days.
Homer is almost unconscious when they find him.
A young journalist called Fifi helps him to recover from his ordeal, by spending most of the time by his bed.
Fifi is with him as they arrive at New York. People carry Homer on their shoulders and under a cloud of confetti to the nearest
hotel, where the journalists wait.
Homer is the most important man in the world and is with Fifi on Victory day, as the crowd celebrates in the streets.
She realizes that Homer loves his fame more than her and leaves him the next morning as he sleeps.
Then Homer travels the world, enjoying his fame, while signing autographs and pictures of himself.
We meet Mario who was born rich but wants to be poor. His butler puts him in a plane on his way to Hawaii when he's drunk
one day.
Mario takes a boat that leaves him in a mystery island populated by Polynesians, where he marries a beautiful girl in a ceremony
by a saucepan.
He then discovers he has been an extra in the film Tawati. He leaves the island in a Chinese ship and ends in an opium den
near Shanghai.
Mario's uncle dies leaving him a fortune, but he also leaves five million dollars to Jesus Christ.
Mario befriends some robbers, once he's back in Colombia. He wants them to kidnap his cousin and ask five million dollars
for his rescue.
Everything goes wrong as one of the gang is killed and Mario has to flee, fearing for his life.
He decides to leave the money by the feet of a statue of Christ but he thinks the nuns must have found it first.
We go back to Homer as he's in Hugh's house in Bogotá. Homer has a look at the manuscripts once more.
Hugh has gone away for a few days, leaving Homer time to analyze the writing.
Homer gets excited as he manages to translate a paragraph talking about the end of the world. He moves through Hugh's house
while barking.
Hugh finds Homer hunched over the papers as he returns later.
Homer hasn't changed his clothes and has grown a beard.
"What's happened to you?" Hugh asks.
"It's apocalypse," Homer says but Hugh thinks he's joking.
Hugh reminds Homer of the yacht he wants to buy and the word yacht, brings him back to reality.
The book has a humoristic look on life. We see the corruption and intrigue existing in Latin American governments then and
now.
Homer is a foreigner in Colombia. He becomes very rich by taking advantage of poor people and society in general.
Mario is rich but wants to be poor. His butler puts him in a plane to Hawaii where he marries a girl. Then he discovers it
was all part of a Holliwood film.
Our two heroes get together for the final chapter of man on this earth. The sun explodes in a nova and sends the planet out
of its orbit.
The end of the world is told in an anonymous letter. Then Mario takes over the narrative and tells us what happens in Homer’s
yacht.
His story is spiced by the effects of the psychedelic drugs he has taken. Mario, Eugene (a girl he befriends) the playboy(someone
they find in a frozen tank) and Homer are the last people alive on earth. They meet aliens who look like lobsters.
