It is an approach that results in a deliberately elliptical narrative, intended to create an aura of mystery while withholding from the reader certain crucial secrets about the characters' pasts.

Ms. Paley's finest tales boast elliptical, seemingly improvisational narratives, filled, as real life is, with loose ends and dead ends, digressions and asides.

Bordwell explains that Antonioni's films were extremely influential on subsequent art films: "More than any other director, he encouraged filmmakers to explore elliptical and open-ended narrative".

"Borderliners" is a willfully elliptical narrative that often tries the reader's patience.

It's pretty thin stuff, certainly by the standards of Macdonald's Lew Archer novels, with their dense psychological detail and elliptical narratives.

"Short Stories" alludes to the elliptical narratives and image overload in fashion magazines with a design that alternates between hurly-burly and sheer nattiness.

Its elliptical narrative follows the emotional lives of four young people coming to terms with their tragic family histories.

Typically, Ashton created his portraits as much through classical dancing as through the elliptical narrative.

Here, if the viewer works at it, the purely formal comparison of different carved stones gives way to an elliptical narrative that evokes plunder, religion and war.

Its elliptical narrative will not appeal to every taste, but this is an eloquent last word from an important artist.