It was W. Somerset Maugham who once said, "I do not know how critics write novels; I know how novelists write them." His irritation was perhaps justified-or perhaps not. He may have had in mind someone like Mark Falcoff, whose uninhibited critical judgement has over the years surveyed writers as diverse as Andre Malraux, Henry James, Randall Jarrell, Evelyn Waugh, Federico Garcia Lorca, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Gerald Brenan, and others. For Mr. Falcoff,...