Josef Baisz is as remarkable a creation as the imaginary country, Sardema, in which he lives. Throughout his life - whether as soldier, scholar, husband, murderer, kidnapper or traitor - he is driven by the overwhelming urge to subvert and to destroy. A man of peculiar genius, this desire spurs him on to 'greater' things until he finally arrives at the inevitable, and yet crushingly unexpected denouement of the tale which he himself narrates.