ARE there any hard-and-fast rules on the length of English-language sentences?

Herman Melville begins his classic whaling novel "Moby Dick" with only three words: "Call me Ishmael." Vladimir Nabokov, my favorite English-language stylist, starts "Lolita," his landmark novel of sexual obsession, not even with a sentence but with three short bursts: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." Later in their stories, both writers at times go on long-sentence binges but nevertheless remain clear and expressive.

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