Obviously the problem of belatedness afflicts Coetzee still. In the final lesson of Elizabeth Costello our heroine is called before a mysterious border-town tribunal which demands a “statement” from her before they will let her pass through—to peace, to death, one is not sure. “The wall, the gate, the sentry, are straight out of Kafka. So is the demand for a confession, so is the courtroom with the dozing bailiff and the panel of old men in their crows’ robes pretending to pay attention while she thrashes in the toils of her own words.” Trapped in a parody of Kafka, Elizabeth Costello must nevertheless produce a statement in earnest. Clichéd her predicament may be, but it is her predicament all the same. And so it is for Diana herself to the nth degree. The writers arriving before her already arrived late; they became a troupe of allusionists and pasticheurs. How late are you, then, when you show up after the late? There is far too much literary history for Diana ever to master it, and far too much for her ever to escape from it; it is her fate never quite to be sophisticated or naïve.