Infinite Summer

HI all reading ahead! I have a question/topic to discuss. When Don Gately is driving to the crosstown grocery to get veg for the newbies, did you notice how as he's driving the narrator describes where the car is going, describes the buildings it passes, and then the narration actually goes into the Antitoi Bros storefront? This was crazy (the scene with the AFR, yes, but also the narrative tool of the car driving through town to change the scene to something we need to witness. Mastery of narration, I think , but also, what the eFF? How can any narrator do this- be in Don's head, be outside of Don's head, and then just lead us somewhere else? I felt like I was superman flying over the city, listening in on bits and pieces and then landing when I sensed danger. Anyone have any thoughts on this, and other narrative ploys?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around not just his talent at doing just that, but his apparant intention to make this weird fluctuating narrator status into a "thing." Sometimes Hal is clearly the narrator. Sometimes we get a good old omniscient narrator. Sometimes the narrator is abstract but clearly focusing on the internal goings-on of one character, which might be a major character,such as in most of the Gately or Joelle sections, or a minor one, such as when the engineer of the Madame Psychosis show is our viewpoint for that section. And, A truly tricky thing to pull off.

I Know! And I have finished, and I can tell you that when the narrator makes it's first person self known again, it is a shocking voice. I mean, I was shocked when I read what I was reading. Because I wasn't used to hearing someone say "I", and "me", and... the first person was then remarkably a foreign voice. So is that why DFW chooses a diff. style throughout? hmm.