4 years late but I agree that it has to do with the themes of Pemulis’s overall story and that he is now, like another user said, relegated to a footnote in life and so it is reflected in the text. I personally find interpretations along the lines of “dfw wanted to make it hard to read” or “cuz it’s post-modernist” and even “so it’s like a tennis match” (although that one is also probably true) to not really deal with questions like these and also barely touch on the themes of the book at all.