Mikhail Bakhtins paradigm of language and his theory of carnival open up the novels of Robert McLiam Wilson forcing readers to reconsider concepts such as identity and truth. Bakhtins philosophy of the novel fits Wilsons texts particularly well due to Irelands unique position during the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. This period in time and space was enveloped in an extremely dense social heteroglossia. Laughter ties Wilsons seemingly disparate novels together and carnival allows readers to view these competing accounts of Belfast as compatible. Ripley Bogle (1989) uses metafiction as a...