Simply because of their respective sheer heft, Wallace's two novels have many, many characters, both peripheral and pivotal.

Despite the surfeit of intriguing minor characters, it is, as with most novels, The Broom of the System's very few major ones that demand our closest attention. Often in Wallace's works minor characters provide plot color, and aid in filling in plot circumstances, as minor characters are generally expected to function. And it is in these many characters' names that Wallace displays his penchant for gags, with names like Judith Prietht (after "Judas Priest," the hard-rock music group), Dick Lipp, and Sigurd Foamwhistle, and the gymnasts, Ruble and Kopek Spaskova (after Russian currency), for example. One thing that is especially significant about the major characters is their doubling. Lenore is echoed by her perpetually absent grandmother of the same name; Lenore's brother, Stoney (IV), is recalled in his domineering father...