 He includes himself as a minor character, a writer who drifts in and out of the lives of the major players.Larry Darrell's lifestyle is contrasted throughout the book with that of his fiancée's uncle Elliott Templeton, an American expatriate living in Paris and an unrepentantly shallow yet generous snob.For example, while Templeton's Catholicism embraces the hierarchical trappings of the church, Larry's proclivities tend towards the 13th-century Flemish mystic and saint John of Ruysbroeck.