Lots of chracters, sketches, incidents in Englander's novel but will these elements cohere into a plot?

Have started Nathan Englander's short but complicated novel Dinner at the Center of the World; I'm drawn into his narrative and will definitely finish reading the book as it's pretty fast going, but I'm a little befuddled as well. Gradually, the main characters come into focus, but NE doesn't make it easy for us, as the novel is broken into short chapters, some set in 2002 others in 2014, some in Israel (or on the border, or on either side of the Gazan border), some in Berlin, some in Paris. At first I threw up my hands (figuratively) in despair, but persistence pays off, and now I'm pretty sure I grasp the main characters: An American named Z who in 2002 is in Paris, having worked for some spy agency, presumably an Israeli operation, and having betrayed the operation, perhaps turning against Israel and becoming a double agent of some sort; in 2014 we see Z as a prisoner in Israel, largely held incommunicado (not on any official record), trying to communicate with a top figure in authority through his jailhouse guard, whose mother works for this top man. Second: The top man, called The General (Israeli readers will probably know right off whom this represents, or of whom he's a composite - I suspect he's based on Sharon), a war hero and later political leader now (2014) in near-comatose state and cared for by a loyal servant, Ruthi; we also have scenes of his earlier life, including a scene in which he hears a shot and rushes outside to see his son shot to death by his (the General's) prize antique rifle (at least I think that's what happened; pretty hard to shoot one's self w/ a rifle, however) and in another we see him blown up in a tank explosion - the incident that presumably put him in a comatose state? Third: a Palestinian-born man named Farid whose family sent him off to Europe in youth and now we see him in Berlin (2002) running business deals and fitting in as a prosperous international type. His relationship to the other characters has not been established at all.  He does befriend a man who says he's a businessman from Canada involved in sales of used computers and needs help with some merchandise stuck in Egypt, and the 2 seem on the verge of forming a partnership - though we have to suspect that either or both may be spies or double agents. Ditto for Z, in Paris in 2002, fearful for his life, and we have to suspect that his supposedly Italian girlfriend whom he supposedly meets by chance in a bookstore (she'd previously waited on him in a Near Eastern restaurant) is also an agent or double agent. OK so lots of little sketches of character and action, but how or when will these elements cohere into a plot?

To order a copy of "25 Posts from Elliot's Reading: Selections from the first 2,500 blog entries," click here.