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Rob Nelson's avatar

I feel like an ass making my first comment here a correction, but I'll console myself with the fact that you asked. Tales of the City was serialized, at least the first few novels were, in the San Francisco Chronicle. My sense is that this fact worked against its literary reputation at first because it was considered low brow to appear in a newspaper. This could be the exception that proves the rule, as I can't come up with another example. Love everything you have published here. Thank you.

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ze's avatar

Killer! The position of the critic feels washed out in some places at the minute, so this is a refreshing read. Been thinking a lot about the cry to 'let people enjoy things', particularly in relation to Rowling when the thing itself is not very good regardless of how we understand her. If everyone is playing the game of 'I'm baby' (I signal my vulnerabilities as a way to protect myself from reasonable critique rather than bring nuance and humanity to my work) then who's flying the plane (resisting context collapse). The point in this piece where I felt real resistance was the use of train rather than railway station - take that as you will.

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