Well Calvino’s got everybody in here–I didn’t even post on what he had to say about publishers–and here may be a little poke at the genre of ‘literary’ or those, perhaps, who don’t quite know how to categorize it:
"According to the more pessimistic rumors, he has started writing a diary, a notebook of reflections, in which nothing ever happens, only moods and the description of the landscape he contemplates for hours from his balcony, through a spyglass…" (p. 121)
I’m not sure if the statement there is disdain for those who navel-gaze or those who merely jealous, call it so.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology