To be honest the overwhelming impression I get from this author is that he's just massively up his own arse. I've read plenty of the books he name drops. I've spent an incredibly slow summer reading The Brothers Karazamov. But if you think that reading a few books on a topic has gotten you to the point where you "match up with professors at Harvard or Oxford" you just don't understand the depth of knowledge you get from devoting your life to studying one specific area of study in depth. It's important he lets you know he's amazingly smart and well read, but it's also important that you know he doesn't do this for any lower moral imperatives such as looking smart, no it's important to know that he does it for the pure pleasure. He takes no pride in quoting Ovid in the original latin, that's just a silly side-effect of his pure path.
To learn he's an American Jazz critic makes perfect sense, it's almost exactly who you would expect to be this pretentious.
To learn he's an American Jazz critic makes perfect sense, it's almost exactly who you would expect to be this pretentious.