Enough Stupidity in Every Wise Man

“There’s no end to a fool’s simplicity” is a five-act play by the Russian playwright Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (1823–1886).

At the center of the plot is the career of a young man with a speaking surname Glumov. In front of people he flatters them, while in his private diary he writes down their mocking characteristics. People—including Glumov himself—more or less deserve these characteristics: in the comedy, perhaps there isn’t a single character with whom the audience would want to wholeheartedly agree. Critics compared the play “There’s no end to a fool’s simplicity” to “A Place of Profit,” noting that the time of idealists has passed forever.

The comedy includes a fortune-teller, Mane fa—an analogue of Feklusha from “The Thunderstorm.” The lowered domestic comic tone, as is often the case with Ostrovsky, is contrasted by threatening devilishness.

The book has been read by popular performer and famous dubbing actor Sergei Gorbunov.