I haven't read the book, but I'm amused he'd criticize his own work to such an extent. To engage in an equally absurd game of "if only", it's quite possible that if he'd written the book then as he would want to now, it wouldn't have achieved the popularity or win an award because it would be a different book. It's not quite a direct comparison, but we've seen all the time series and authors whose later works/series installments were clearly inferior works than the books written earlier.