The meta-addiction angle certainly applies to me too. There's a reason I just bought four more of his books immediately nearing the end of this one. It also started off really slowly for me, then after a certain point I couldn't put it down or think of much else in the meantime. A great novel of contradictions - it's remarkably intellectual and unafraid to hide just how full of knowledge and just general stuff, minutiae it is, and yet completely down to earth, readable and unpretentious in its prose and form. Also seemingly completely free-flowing stream-of-consciousness, put together after the fact and yet feels 100% deliberate in its construction. I'm almost 100% on board with the ending now, especially in regard to how it almost immediately invites you to start over and the "Year of Glad" reveals itself to be a lucid epilogue stuck back on to the beginning. Really beguiling mobius strip structure that ultimately leaves me pretty satisfied, despite how many threads are left dangling, though that was never really the novel's main drive.