Why are celebrated novels “unreadable, turgid, overwritten and obscene?”

This phrase was once used to describe Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, which lost me in the opening pages. Too postmodern, too absurdist. Admittedly the World War II setting is the best and only way to establish a postmodern work, what with the bombs falling over Japan, all of those random numbers bouncing around, strings of information popping in and out of existence.

Click here for Tyler Cowen's dispatch on Pynchon. As for me? Not interested.

Anyway, the question is reversed. It should say, why are turgid, overwritten and obscene works celebrated? Maybe this happens the same way that ecletic dining is celebrated. Food critics surely lose the taste for steak pretty quickly. So lobster tamales in tequila cream sauce, chocolate martinis, foie gras, and ice cream with chile powder become four-star fare.