A backdrop of Polish politics is an indirect participant in this measured look at a young writer's obsession with his "idol." In the difficult 1950s, a prominent (fictitious) Polish writer, Piotr Korton, was forced into exile in West Germany in order to continue living and writing without danger of incarceration. After he dies, another young Polish writer gets the idea to do an essay on the man's life and work. Times are better in Poland and there is some leeway in writing about topics that were once censored. Once the young writer has embarked on his project, he develops such a rapport with the life and personality of Korton that his own identity is dangerously close to dissolution.