Much has been published recently about the decline of tragedy, and the question has been asked whether tragedy can be written in this age. Offstage, during the discussion, Alan Paton went ahead and did it—in terms of the novel—in Too Late the Phalarope. It was the book that followed his much-acclaimed first novel, Cry, the Beloved Country. It offered him, therefore, all the notorious "second book" challenges, as well as the problems of tragedy. The two books are an interesting study in the tragic—and an element beyond. (p. 83)
The core of Too Late the Phalarope is classically simple: Pieter van Vlaanderen, a police lieutenant, honored in the community, breaks the iron law of the South African Immorality Act. Thereby he is destroyed and his family with him. A secret flaw has brought about the fall of a man of stature. He comprehends what has happened, and recognizes his own responsibility in it. Nevertheless, the story contains forces that become cumulative inevitabilities, helping to thrust him on an inexorable path. As in Cry, the Beloved Country, we are given a balanced picture of environmental influences coexistent with personal responsibility.
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