Re you and _refugee_: So apparently this book is classified as "post-modernism", which I only learned about when veen mentioned the topic a week or so ago. I'm not sure if that label is given for the overall philosophies or the actual writing style of the author. But if it's the latter, it reminds me a lot of video games: in the sense that you find documents throughout a level giving you the optional backstory on the setting and characters (A la).

I'm given the impression that the book is a merge of a traditionally written story and the side-stories that may not fit into its chronology but make for fun writing exercises in the process of the central storyline. The same way an author might draft character profiles before starting on the main work, I feel like DFW takes those same accessory stories and drops them into both the footnotes and the main body of the book.

It may be an odd observation / guess, but I can't help but wonder to what extent the book was deliberately designed in advance and conversely how much was written without pre-meditated purpose.