All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.
When somebody asks me what I do, I don't think I'd say critic. I say writer.
Jane Austen is at the end of the line that begins with Samuel Richardson, which takes wonder and magic out of the novel, treats not the past but the present.
Saul Bellow never took my advice when he was my friend.
I long for the raised voice, the howl of rage or love.
One more recent novelist to come along is Cormac McCarthy. Him, I like.