The Crying of Lot 49

The Crying of Lot 49
by Thomas Pynchon
read: circa 2006
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels

I've read The Crying of Lot 49 twice.  I did not quite understand it the first time, so I read it again.  I still did not quite understand it.  I imagine I will repeat this pattern a few more times over my lifetime.  The Crying of Lot 49 has a wonderful quality where you keep feeling like you almost understand it, even though true understanding for the reader is futile - as it is for the book's protagonist Oepida Maas.  But I still feel that if I read the novel just one more time, I can glean another clue.  Maybe I can piece together what is going on in the chopped-up and out-of-order movie Oedipa watches with the lawyer, or Mucho's LSD-inspired speculation that you can re-create an entire person by the pitch they play the violin, or what in the world is going on in play-within-the-play "The Courier's Revenge," or whether any of the secret postal organizations actually exist.  If I can just figure out one more thing, maybe it will all make sense.  Or maybe not.  Is Pynchon cautioning me against reading too much into literature, or encouraging it?  Or is he just messing with me?