I read it again last year and picked up on a few things that had slipped past my understanding the first time around. I had originally assumed that the present day Enoch Root was the child of Bobby's Nordic girlfriend, but it was obviously not the case upon my second reading. A few web searches revealed the supernatural nature of Root.

I always wondered if Stephenson chose the name "Enoch Root" on a dare, or maybe he has some other story. It's probably something related to an "Enterprise NOC Root" computer account.