The unrealistic demands of Jon McGregor's debut novel

As to Jon McGregor's debut novel, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2002), either (a) I'm too dumb to keep track of what's going on in this novel or (b) McGregor has no idea of what's going on in his own novel of (c) the only possible way to make sense of this novel is to read it more than once and, while doing so, to use a spreadsheet or bulletin board or something to write down each of the characters as introduced and all the salient information about each one. I'm going w/ c - as I'm a pretty good reader and McGregor is obviously a writer of great talent (he was in his 20s when this novel was published). But: Is it worth it? Sure I'll devote that kind of time and attention to, say, Joyce or Proust or Faulkner, but is the game really worth the candle here? I'm about 2/3 through this 250pp novel; as noted in yesterday's post, McGregor moves about among a few different structures: Some chapters go paragraph by paragraph, each giving us info about the various residents of the various building units - ID's on by # - of this unnamed street in unnamed city (possibly London?) and  other chapters are the POV of one character only. Few of the characters have names, and it's literally impossible to keep them all straight as McGregor intentionally holds back key information that would, or might, explain some of the curiosities of the plot: Many of the characters seem to have problems w/ their hands, cuts or burns or something and 2 characters (I think) have st their hands by smashing all the dishes in their apartment. Among the many other characters we need to track are a young woman pregnant by a one-night stand, the young man who walked her home after a party, the man's twin (allegedly, though it's obvious he's one and the same) hoping to date this same young woman, two young boys who create noisy disturbances, a man upset w/ the trash thrown into his yard, an elderly couple (the man is dying of lung cancer), a single parent (dad?) also dying, and there are others. McGregor teasingly indicates there was some kind of catastrophic event on the street - maybe this can explain all the hand injuries? - but withholds any significant info about this event until the final 3rd of the novel, if then. The writing throughout is clear, simple, and intelligent - but what a mess of a design, what an unacceptable burden on the reader. I will finish reading this novel, but I think it has to stand as one of those just-out-of-grad-school brilliant (as the English say) narratives - anyone who's been in a graduate writing workshop knows what I'm talking about - that holds promise of much better works to follow.