The future of literary criticism is a pink cloud. Or a big cheese. Take your pick.

"Not waving but drowning," eh?

Well, I for one prefer to think literary critics are just doing acrobatics.

William Gibson is a wonderful example of the limits of book criticism. I can't imagine James Wood, for example, having anything useful to say about Gibson. Any more than I would expect Michiko Kakutani to say something enlightening about Cormac McCarthy. Even the greatest critics have peculiar blind spots. (We sometimes call these "taste.") Perhaps it's better for books, or readers, that the voice of the old-fashioned authoritative critic be drowned in the general hubbub.