But I would say that today the rule of 'Keep It Short' is confirmed even
by long novels, the structure of which is accumulative, modular, and combinatory.
These considerations are at the basis of what I call the 'hyper-novel,'
which I tried to exemplify in If on a winter's night a traveler (Se
una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore). My aim was to give the essence
of what a novel is by providing it in concentrated form, in ten beginnings;
each beginning develops in very different ways from a common nucleus, and
each acts within a framework that both determines and is determined.
Italo Calvino
Six Memos for the Next Millenium