I had to go back to double check, and indeed there's the "talking to your reader" device used in both places, however - and it could be just my translation - but I didn't see the same condescension in Calvino's words. They were evoking - to me at least - the joy and anticipation a reader gets when starting a new, mouth-watering novel. Not the sedation of a modern life under existential depression.

Maybe that's what the author wants to tell us, a contrast between the two, but I feel like they could have done that in other ways than at my expense as their reader.