I've never found a book that does this, so it would be nice to read one. For example only, It starts with a boy who is bound to a wheel chair and is only able to travel in spiritual form so he travels the universe but gets too close to the sun that it burns the umbilical cord that is connected to his body The story shifts to the boy as an adult lamenting on this and telling it to a friend. The story shifts back to the boy's spirit meeting another spirit who is a female and he asks her name right before the story shift again. It cuts to the boy barely being born and something meaningful is revealed about his physical condition as a female spirit watches. The story then shift to him asking her for her name and she is revealed to be the spirit that watched him being born and she is lost. In the end, he brings her to heaven but is sent into his mortal body where he could now walk. It seems like a very genius idea to write like that style. What is it called? And what are some books like that?
I would call that style serial digression, but I admit I just made that up. If you were to write a story like that, you would have to be very careful how you jumped around. I wrote something where the scenes jumped through time to create more tension and some of the people who read it complained they found it confusing. Others, of course, thought it was great. I can't think of any books or stories like that off the top of my head, though I'm sure they're out there. There are a lot of sci/fi authors who get very playful with time and the order of events in their stories. One way to keep it interesting would be to not make it obvious that the characters are the same in each scene. Then, at the end, make it clear it was the same people the whole time. I read something like that once - ticks me off I can't remember what it was!
I would call it "Condiluted". Maybe that term will become popular when I give it to the mailman who goes back in time and it gives it to his brother's second cousin who uses it to cut a piece of bacon that gets burnt because it flew to close to the plasma soap dispenser that was procured in future time from when the mailman went back in time to deliver the word condiluted to the brother's second cousin who then made it popular enough to where most people actually think its a word. On a more serious note, it seems like the story you described has flashbacks and flashforwards as techniques. I don't know if that was what you were looking for. I don't know about books, I would say the TV show Lost was like that and was pretty well done.
