Abstract

Pynchon's famously encyclopedic narratives are so heteroglossic that we should be surprised if they did not include a range of eating and drinking motifs. Pynchon's creative and puzzling onomastics illustrate the point: Meatball Mulligan, Slab, Bloody Chiclitz, Edwin Treacle, Brigadier Ernest Pudding, RC and Moonpie, Mr. Chew, Billy Barf and the Vomitones. More to the purpose here are the descriptions of food, such as "a basket filled with cold eggplant parmigian' sandwiches" in The Crying of Lot 49, "a large Basket dedicated to Saccharomanic Appetites, piled to the Brim with fresh-fried Dough-Nuts roll'd in Sugar, glaz'd Chestnuts, Buns, Fritters, Crullers, Tarts" in Mason & Dixon, and Vineland's Bodhi Dharma pizza, whose crust has "the lightness and digestibility of a manhole cover," and Spinach Casserole made with "UBI, or Universal Binding Ingredient, cream of mushroom soup." The satiric possibilities are obvious.

How to Cite:

W. Schlegel, K., (2001) “The Rebellion of the Coprophages”, Pynchon Notes , 170-177. doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/pn.95