What does a literary critic’s apotheosis look like? One path of ascension begins with a piece of cultural critique so ruddy it gets mistaken for a slab of steak in the pages of The New Republic. He also writes fiction, but he is never one of them, and novelists loathe him. He publishes collections of meaty essays that other critics chew on. His clarity of conviction prompts him to praise Flaubert, Henry James, and Joyce, though the praise is qualified. He must indubitably ascend to The New Yorker and begin teaching at an Ivy League school. At which point he settles into his late memoir years, graying like King Lear.
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