In the carnival

I’ve just read about Bakhtin[i], Rabelais, and Dostoevsky. Bakhtin wrote about the other two – famously. Famously? Posing as a literary critic, he was a moral philosopher,  famously avoiding the Gulag. I read quickly. Three themes. First, sometimes in Dostoevsky, you can’t tell what the author thinks. Secondly, nothing is ever finalised or begun; we don’t know what happened before the beginning or after the end.

And

A third. Carnival. Renaissance carnival, turning the world upside down. Kings are beggars and beggars kings; mockery, blasphemy, license, obscenity, insolence and ribaldry rule. No observers (as in satire). No audience. Just players. Jokers.

And Celebrities, scamps, economists, politicians, experts, swindlers and pollsters cavort in Makerfield, Davos, Love Island, boardrooms, cabinets, and NASDAQ and whatever. Putin, Princes, Dukes, Trump, and statesmen romp, puke, hire, fire, protest and cabaret and burlesque (appropriate verbs?) and whatever.

 And I (we?) am taking them so seriously that I don’t even have to stifle a laugh, or guffaw. TGIF. Tomorrow.

[i] NYR oF Books June25,2026