Yes, I take that back, actually, about linear narratives having been exhausted.

But if you found hollowness beneath Lynch's mystery, then how come my claim to understand the film is a pretence?

I've said in the past that I think it helps to approach Lynch's films, particularly Mulholland and Lost Highway, as blankets, as textures, as a canvas full of splattered paint. What comes across to us as rather abstract might make perfect sense to the painter; but in describing it as abstract, the painter has not failed to translate his meaning, because that is what he always set out to do: not to confuse, but to create said blanket, the shapeless texture, a mass of visuals and sounds, underneath which might be as much depth as you want to find, or a vacant void of emptiness.

With most other filmmakers, the subtext is there, lying on a plate, and whether you like the film or not depends on whether you decide to eat what's on the plate. But Lynch only serves what your mind wishes to have; there's nothing tangible there, it's what you find to eat for yourself.