the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text

Can anyone seriously accept the above as legitimate literary criticism? Pondering the wealth of great literature we are fortunate enough to possess, it's always been my gut feeling that the whole deconstruction business as a bunch of Bovung, YCLIU one more way for lit-crit types to keep trying to one-up each other. Sure, there are different levels of interpretation, subconscious revelations, and all that. But still, it's the text I'll go to first.