I am still shaken by my last reading of The Idiot, perhaps my favorite book by Dostoevsky, which I finished yesterday evening, almost exactly twenty-four hours ago. I rushed to finish it before dinner, when friends joined me for a meal, because I did not wish them to see my tears. Or my sorrow. And this is how it is with all Dostoevsky’s books, no matter how many times I read them. For I never remember the plot. I never remember the plot’s resolution, either. Which is why I am now left wondering about my reading of this master of the word. If the plot is so unimportant to me, to the point of surprising me time and again, what is it that draws me to Dostoevsky ever anew? I am not sure that I can answer this question at the moment, for The Idiot is still too fresh in my mind, but I can venture a hypothesis of sorts. It appears to me that the great writer attracts me so much because I delight in the parables that pop up along the way. The plot is of interest only as a backdrop for these sublime short stories. It frames them, spaces them out, and prepares the reader for them. And I would not be surprised if Dostoevsky saw the plot—any plot, for that matter—in precisely the same way.