Man, that’s a difficult question. You pretty much have to read it twice. Once to scratch the surface and get the narrative, characters and superficial meaning. The second time to dig deeper to try and get the deeper meaning and everything going on. If you try to get it all the first time you end up rereading page after page because you realize there is so much packed into each paragraph that you missed a bunch on the first reading. The characters, allegory, philosophy and tight interwoven plot is astounding but even the mere prose itself is just brilliant. I find it hard to believe a person could write something this long, deep and complex in just one lifetime.
Whose translation did you read?