Long ago, I had a subscription to Harpers, and tried a few times to read Lapham's commentary. The phrase that kept popping into my head was the one famously coined by Spiro Agnew -- effete snob. Pompous bla bla signifying nothing (more or less what Noah said). Perhaps in the afterlife (call it hell or irony or whatever you please), Lapham and Agnew would be excellent bunk mates.

Now I would sooner eat lima beans than read anything by Lapham.

At the same time, I wonder as you do why Noah thought it necessary to put the knife in at this moment, in such a snide way. His column is more like something to write after the man's death, in a more obscure literary journal, just to warn aspiring would-be writers not to go that way. That would have been a useful and more discreet alternative.