GRGR(5) Katje: take two

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Michael Perez wrote:

> Doug quoted the following crucial passage:
> "She asks this seriously, as if there's a real conversion factor
> between information and lives. Well, strange to say, there is. Written
> down in the Manual, on file at the War Department. Don't forget the
> real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the
> violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals.
> The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as
> spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides
> raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be
> taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be
> more prepared for the adult world.[...] The true war is a celebration
> of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled "black" by the
> professionals, spring up everywhere. [...] the truer currencies come
> into being." (105.24)
>
> So, is Katje a non-professional or professional?  I vote for
> non-professional.  I wouldn't say she's an unwilling or even reluctant
> victim.  For her this was her way to survive (Measly Little Lives, Part
> Whichever).  It was a noticeably unheroic way to survive, perhaps on
> par with the Vichy French, but after the war von Braun and others just
> trying to survive (yeah, right) went willingly into the employ of the
> old enemies and were welcomed with open arms by the same former
> enemies.  Is this a matter of the spoils of war belonging to the
> victors?  What of non-professionals like Katje?  She gets spurned by
> some of the Checkpoint Charlies on her way into the arms of the British
> because she is no longer of any service to them.  At this point, there
> is no way of knowing that whatever she is doing is motivated by any
> idea of which side should win, for whatever reason.  There is also no
> way of knowing if she cares why the film is being made and whether it
> would matter to her that they use to turn on an octopus (eight arms to
> hold you?).
>

Katje is a professional. A professional solopsist. Sexual relations in
Pynchon are perverse acts by insane individuals, performing in the theatre
(the war).  They represent history.