"Caterva" (meaning "throng" or "horde") tells the story of seven erudite, homeless, and semi-incompetent radicals traveling from city to city in an attempt to foment a revolution: conspiring with striking workers, setting off bombs, and evading the local authorities. But this is no political thriller. Like his literary "descendant" Julio Cortazar--who mentions this book in "Hopscotch"--Filloy is far more concerned with his characters' occasionally farcical inner lives than with their radical machinations. With its encyclopedic feel, and its satirical look at both solidarity and nonconformity,...