A brief discursion into theory of reading before addressing the book on hand. It is my personal belief that the text of a book is created by the interaction between the reader and the text. If a reader engages with the book each individual reader will get something different out of the same text. It is the job of the author to write a text that draws the reader in and is worth the time they are allotting it.
A reader can benefit from reading a text by an emotional response, new intellectual response or by gaining a sense of time and place.
The last time I read this book I was in college. I personally found it worth rereading. I responded to a theme I hadn't even noticed the first time I read it, the theme that cowardice is the greatest sin. I also felt that I really got a sense of what Moscow was like in the thirties. I loved the small details like Berlioz and Ivan Homeless knowing that Woland was foreign because both his shoes were dyed the same color.
My main question to others is not whether you got the book, but whether the text drew you in and engaged in a rewarding way? If not, what did the author do or fail to do that kept you from being drawn into the text?
I hope this isn't too English majory.