The moral of the book is contained approximately in the halfway of the book and so we actually only read the events unfold before Ivan Ilyich's gradual decline. That's the plot, basically. I'm okay if a book is plotless, but not this book. Nu-uh. This book is like showing you what a life directed to a certain life would lead, and takes the story to its implication, to his eventual death, coloring it with nihilism for an added bonus. I don't need that.