VLVL2 (9): Four Rubber Scampi with Tomato Sauce

[Tim Strzechowski]

130.9:  "[Wayvone] finally approached [DL] in a coffee shop in Eugene, where she had been staring dejectedly, apparently for some time, at a plate with four rubber scampi, rushed in fresh from the joke store down the street and covered as completely as possible with tomato sauce." 


Guessing here . . .

Wayvone = mafia ties (Italian stereotype), right?

If the four rubber scampi = DL, Lobelia, Frenesi, and (?) who, Prairie (?), and they are "covered as completely as possible with tomato sauce (Italian food staple // Ralph), does this "meal" present an element of foreshadowing in the novel?

note:  "[DL] became aware of Ralph, looming over her food . . ."

Also:

"rushed in fresh from the joke store" = four females // four scampi (i.e. seafood, a pretty sophomoric joke in itself)

    Ralph: How can you eat that?
    DL: Just what I ask myself.  Anything else?
Sexual overtones?

Note, in any case, Pynchon's use of food throughout the novel (and his work on the whole) -- as names of people (Moonpie) and places (Cucumber Lounge), helping contrast how characters interact with each other (Hector and Zoyd in the diner in Chapter 3), and as ways of providing characterization (later in this chapter).

Tim


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