Beloved's status

An article in Slate critiques the New York Times Book Review's selection of Beloved as the best novel of the past 25 years. Slate critic Stephen Metcalf backs into his essay by saying Beloved needs to be evaluated critically: Just how good is it anyway? It seems like a phony question since the NYT just said flat-out that it was pretty darn good. Finally, though, Metcalf comes to the heart of his appraisal:

What Beloved does feel grounded in, and firmly, is a repudiation of everything that exerts a soft but nonetheless unpleasant authority in a young person's life. In place of the need to master hard knowledge or brute facts, there is folk wisdom; in place of science, animism; in place of the strict father, the self-sufficient matriarchy ...

He concludes:

No other American novel of the past 25 years has so elegantly mapped the psychobiography of its ideal reader.

Now maybe I'm slow, but that sounds like an insult to me ... Why is he being so coy? Is he trying to avoid the dreaded accusation of snark? I don't like snark either. But I say, if you want to take down Beloved, then make your argument and take it down (or try to). I suspect he's reluctant to take on Morrison, an iconic Nobel prize winner (and, don't forget, a friend of Oprah).
Full disclosure: I do think Toni Morrison is one of the country's best writers, but I have not read Beloved. So, sadly, I cannot address the specifics of Metcalf's critique. I'm blogging this because I find public debates about literary merit to be endlessly fascinating.