Elizabeth Costello, the cheat sheet

Some months back, a friend called with a problem. "I'm reading [Coetzee's] Elizabeth Costello," he said. "That's good," I said. "No," he said. "I'm reading it for the fourth bloody time and I still don't bloody get the bloody book."
S, this one's for you.
"OK, for those of you keeping score at home, we've got a fictional character whose career– in her own fiction– consists of rewriting a famous fictional character. But in this fiction, she doesn't write any fiction." Michael Bérubé makes it sound so simple.