But why Mozart rather than pop stars – surely easier starting points, with their neat three-minute songs and discrete narratives?
And so attempts to make sense of it piecemeal and in medias res, in discrete narratives with beginnings and ends, are likely to feel incomplete and unsatisfying.
The Lucky Ones comprises five discrete narratives, different in voice and structure, linked by the influence of two characters who only take the stage in the last story.
When Barack Obama writes about building a new political landscape by rediscovering hope, it is the hope of the sociology that the jazz moment suggested was possible; multiple discrete narratives woven together into something truly culturally coherent and inspiring.
Flanking their stories are several apparently discrete narratives, including a vivid account of Christian women hacked to death by the Romans, and an arch segment about Philip's stay in hospital after hurting his toe.
As it is, the five more or less discrete narratives, while varying in standard from spectacular to so-so, conduct a mutual running commentary, multiplying dynamics, bridging millennia and resulting in a novel that's almost fizzy to the touch.
In contrast, "Justified" spent its first season hopping merrily among discrete narratives, folding these episodes into the story of Boyd's ministry, a tale of true belief turned tragic.
In this approach, discrete narratives are compared within common themes which are integrated across narratives in order to articulate a theory of how the themes are related to each other.
A blizzard of people, places, organizations and anecdotes can be disorienting, and instead of a discrete central narrative that might keep wandering minds on course, the book contains multiple narratives and delicately interlaced themes.
"Mystery" is quite often what such novels are after in keeping their narratives discrete, providing satisfaction by bringing them together only at the end.
