The novel pretends to be a book of self-help methods but spends most of its length relating the history of the narrator’s rise to—and fall from—riches. Each chapter has a rule as its title, and taken as a list of instructions, they serve as the self-improvement framework for readers wishing to use the narrator’s philosophy. The goal of the book is ostensibly the same as the book’s title: how to get filthy rich in rising Asia. This is the first hint of the book’s satirical nature. Books written for profit tend to attempt to address the largest possible audience, and if followed literally, the methods in this book would only apply to those who aspired to—or who already did—live in Asia.

This irony becomes increasingly more clear with each chapter, as the narrator begins critiquing the concept of self-help itself. A person reads a self-help book hoping that the author will help him, not that he will help himself. The narrator even provides reasons why the very notion of a “self” is problematic when it comes to self improvement. By the end of the novel, he has managed to become filthy rich, despite losing his fortune.