With his wonderfully complex yet controlled plot, deft portrayal of eccentric characters, and great wit, Davies effectively satirizes the world of universities and foundations. Doctoral student and composer Hulda Schnackenburg, as well as priest and scholar Simon Darcourt, and also director Arthur Cornish, work to complete and stage E.T.A. Hoffman's unfinished opera. Soon the characters' lives begin to resemble the opera's plot, and the spirit of Hoffman in Limbo, who observes "Let the lyre of Orpheus open the door of the underworld of feeling, " complicates the action - all to the reader's delight.