This article traces the patterns of irony and the carnivalesque in Murat Uyurkulak's fantastic fiction Har, focusing especially on the depiction of a group of misfits, yamuklar (the crooked), as portrayed in the central chapter, “Cinema Grande.” Arguing that a reconfigured carnival spirit finds its way into Uyurkulak's novel, the article explores from a Bakhtinian perspective the ways in which the author offers a modern version of popular festive elements, especially the jester or the fool who signifies the symbolic destruction of authority and resistance to the mechanisms of power. The employment of the carnivalesque enables the author not only to speak of what is essentially unspeakable, but also to displace the illusion of progress fabricated by authority. This turns out to be possible only through artistic illusion. By focusing on the portrayal of the outcasts in Cinema Grande, this article also draws attention to the different representations of madness in Atay's “disconnected” and Uyurkulak's “crooked.”
