I believe that Macedonia is trying to challenge the reader to keep reading that is why there is a lack of context of characters and everything else. he adds details about characters only after he believes a lazy reader would stop paying attention, he tells you the end of the novel in the very beginning for the same reason, the characters are all archetypes basically that he doesnt have to explain that much because we already have read it many times before. there is Eterna that represents everything about love and happiness, then the president that represents everything manly. and the rest of the characters are like guildenstern and rosencrantz in hamlet they are simply devices to play off of this book makes me think a lot about that movie.