GRGR(5) Katje: take two

[David Morris]

Michael Perez:
>
Doug quoted the following crucial passage [further edited]:
>>"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 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. [snip] 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?).

In this context, "professional" has to do with "buying and selling" without
regard to the human cost beyond its market value.  Katje has been in the
employ of "professionals" and may be in training to be one herself.  Her
heart is obscure, carefully kept so by her own design.  There are hints that
she cares, has a conscience, but not what drives it.  Blicero observes that
she "plays at playing," that her heart is not engaged in HIS game.  Is it
engaged elsewhere?  Is she an example of another "Slothrop" coldly aware of
the conditioning going on, and finding emotional disengagement as the only
way to hold on to herself?

rj:
>(In close-up her skin, though nearly perfect, is seen to be lightly
>powdered and rouged, the eyelashes a touch darkened, brows reshaped a
>matter of two or three empty follicles. . . .) 93
>
>Katje wears makeup. [snip] That she wears makeup at all
>(to a stereotypically chauvinistic way of thinking, no doubt)
>signifies narcissism, vanity perhaps (but maybe not so in
>Katje's case), but that it is as subtle as this signifies
>subterfuge and deceit (for me at least). This is the first
>hint that Katje is double-dealing, that appearances, and *her*
>appearance, are not what they seem.

For me, the significance of this description of Katje is to show her
exquisite sophistication.  Other women, Jessica for example, also wear
make-up,  but Katje does it to perfection.  Katje's waters run DEEP.  She
has seen plenty.