Coetzee's "Costello": A Cryptic Confession?

Is Coetzee cryptically admitting regret for writing some of his darker books, e.g., In The Heart of the Country? And wouldn't it have been better to simply "come out with it" instead of beating up on Mr. West?
   Yet she does the same kind of thing, or used to. Until she thought better of it, she had no qualms about rubbing people's faces in, for instance, what went on in abattoirs.
And from Lesson 8: At the Gate, a couple of quotes.

To get through the gate you must state your beliefs:
   Belief. Is that all? Not a statement of faith? What if I do not believe? What if I am not a believer?
Defending herself as a writer (which doubles as a defense for unbelief):
   I am a writer, and what I write is what I hear. I am a secretary of the invisible, one of many secretaries over the ages. That is my calling: dictation secretary. It is not for me to interrogate, to judge what is given me. I merely write down the words and then test them, test their soundness, to make sure I have heard right.

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