Is Pica Absurd?

A crazy psychiatrist, a philosophical beggar, "an aging night-watchman, nibbling at a bar of Ivory Soap, who had trained his virtuoso stomach to accept also lotions, air-fresheners, fabrics, tobaccoes and waxes in a hopeless attempt to assimilate it all, all the promise, productivity, betrayal, ulcers, before it was too late" (100), "a Negro woman with an intricately-marbeled scar along the baby-fat of one cheek who kept going through rituals of miscarriage each for a different reason, deliberately as others might the ritual of birth, dedicated not to continuity but to some kind of interregnum..." (100) are all characters which Pynchon uses to convey satire. The Mr. Hilarius' fit is ironical, for if anyone is expected to be sane, its those helping others achieve it. The beggar's case of teaching Oedipa a lesson of life (that we should try to help without concern for the outcome) is also ironical; for who would expect philosophical insight from a beggar? The night-watchman's pica case is a satirical example of not so absurd absurdity. The Negro woman's habit of carrying miscarriages out is an example of targeting. She satirizes the habit of abortion and the "mistake" of pregnancy.

So why the overloaded satire in one chapter? Maybe Pynchon is laughing at satire itself. He may be targeting undiscreet and mediocre satire with his own examples of what not to do. This would defenitely coincide with Pynchon's attitude towards other common things in other parts of the book, like when he laughs at the readers themselves for reading such a book (this mystery that Pynchon's Nancy Drew is trying to unveil is somewhat stupid).