English-speaking African writers simply don't exist: no Chinua Achebe, no Nadine Gordimer, with their narrative ambitions and complexities.

Mr. Weerasethakul's unrushed rhythms and the tenderness with which he takes us through a scene work a nice counterpoint to his bold narrative ambitions.

Meanwhile, as her narrative ambitions have grown, she's become ever less interested in showing off.

Although she has loved drawing almost from birth, Ms. Crumb's narrative ambitions have not always focused on comics.

Often, the problems of bringing together two shows with different narrative ambitions make the writing of a crossover burdensome.

The variety of techniques and materials, the mix of large-scale feats of draftsmanship with clusters of framed works, the breadth of sources (from American quilt patterns to Japanese anime to 19th-century illustration) and the range of narrative ambition create an exhilarating sense of possibility.

Too bad their director, distracted by all that plot and his own narrative ambitions, couldn't see that two kings trump three blondes, dead or alive, every time.

While the characters in a drama like, say, "The Coast of Utopia" articulate their worldviews in dazzlingly literate dialogue and fully formed paragraphs, the people in these American dramas, which have more modest narrative ambitions, can hardly muster a complete sentence without being interrupted.

What is also new is the narrative ambition.