"'The novel' is overrated" ?

       This weekend's The New York Times Book Review-Q & A features Teju Cole: By the Book.
       Among the questions he's asked is: "What books are you embarrassed not to have read yet ?" to which he responds:

I have not read most of the big 19th-century novels that people consider "essential," nor most of the 20th-century ones for that matter. But this does not embarrass me.

       He's right not to be embarrassed by that of course -- life is, indeed, too short, and time is easily filled with any number of worthwhile things; not having read book X or Y is hardly shameful.
       On the other hand, it does throw into a different light an earlier statement he makes, claiming that:

"the novel" is overrated, and the writers I find most interesting find ways to escape it

       Since he goes on to admit he's actually not engaged with what are considered the exemplary novels of the 19th and 20th century, surely his dismissal comes far too rashly ..... Maybe it's a good idea to read what are considered the 'essential' novels, to see what all the fuss is about, and only then make a grand pronouncement as to whether or not the genre as a whole is over-rated .....

       (As someone who considers 'the novel' -- in all its many forms -- the be-all and end-all of literature, art, human thought, and human experience, I am, of course, biased. But even I am careful about dismissing any specific (other) form as over-rated.)

       And at least he does give a shout-out to what is a very fine novel indeed (though, yes, one for which he wrote the Introduction): Ivan Vladislavić's Double Negative.