A Strange Kind of Grace: From Narrative to Embodied Authority in J. M. Coetzee's Age of Iron and Elizabeth Costello

At first glance, Age of Iron and Elizabeth Costello share a striking range of elements, from protagonists who share first names and initials to a sense that they are being called on to account for themselves as intellectuals. 1 At a deeper level, the two texts also demonstrate a continuity of narrative strategies, including the use of the confessional mode, unreliable narration, and resistance to narrative closure. 2 Because these strategies effectively entrap the characters in confessional narratives that consistently deny them absolution, the two Elizabeths ultimately resort to the same conceit, forcibly attempting to provide closure by narrating their own deaths in voices that reach from beyond the grave. However, these points of coherence have so far gone largely undiscussed, perhaps primarily due to the different contexts in which the novels were published. On the one hand, critics tend to read Age of Iron as Coetzee's first direct and therefore most political literary response to apartheid because it is set in an identifiable