In the absence of any other comment, I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean. But given the posts that followed, it seems pretty prescient
nice to be called prescient, however i was just making a lame joke - yr subtitle being 'shot by both sides' and you drawing attention to the article - in essence asking for lit crit - exactly what roth didn't want. hence the (attempted) witticism.
as for the professional critic pov - unless they are total hatchet men like dale peck most actually like books!!! I don't think any have any real influence - someone like james woods probably thinks that readers salivate over his every orotund turn but very few people actually read serious lit crit - after all it is entirely absent from the 'quality' press nowadays - (the FT has a biggish book essay on a saturday, the rest have piffling reviews of teh same old stuff). You've got to get the LRB or NYRB to get proper reviews and they don't review that much fiction.
i think roth has never really recoverd from the very public fallout with clare bloom which saw this, essentially private, man get mauled in the press by a vicious woman scorned (communist is allegedly a very thinly veiled portrait of the whole affair)
finally agree with you re roth's output - the last four novels have been amongst the best that fiction has to offer over the last ten or so years and portnoy/columbus/counterlife and many others are pretty shit hot too