You might enjoy On Moral Fiction by John Gardner, who argues that good literature is about the characters, especially their decisions and transformations, rather than cleverness in language and plot. His model is Anna Karenina, and I think it's people like Pynchon he has in mind for his critique. And he was not just a stodgy critic, but a flowering author himself. His book Grendel is short and fun---the story of Beowulf from the monster's perspective. Sadly he died young in a motorcycle accident, so we didn't get many examples of his approach. Another modern writer that I think he would have approved of is Wallace Stegner. Crossing to Safety and Angle of Repose are both wonderful.