We have seen how in The Double the narrator's position vis-à-vis the reader and the hero can cause the reader intense frustration (at the cost of the realism of the ‘socially given text’) and how in Notes from Underground the narrator openly draws the reader into the dialogue. This experience, together with his exploitation of techniques for creating emotional and perceptual confusion, is put to new and original use in The Idiot. So much so that it is justifiable not only to speak of readers not knowing where they stand in relation to the text, but also of the deployment of strategies for confusing the reader. These were present also in earlier texts, but nowhere so highly developed as in The Idiot.

In fact the novel both states and exemplifies the problems which arise in trying to bridge the gap between discourse and reality. If this sounds over-abstract or unorthodox (surely The Idiot is about the destiny of a positively beautiful man in St Petersburg or something of the kind) then a re-reading of the novel with this question in mind should be sufficient to convince the most sceptical reader. The difficulty of expressing adequately and truthfully not only the most sacred truths but even ordinary everyday facts is harped on constantly by both characters and narrator.