Pedro Paramo Squared = Confusion

Just today I finished reading Pedro Paramo the second time.  I still don't know wether or not I think that Jaun Preciado is dead or alive at the beginning of the story.  I'm still confused as to the timeline of his death if he is alive and I still don't know who in the town is alive or dead when he is there.  I feel as though you have to choose a way to interpret it so as not to become bogged down by thoughts about who could be in which plane or who is a ghost.  Juan is definitively dead when he is buried, but some of the other people seem alive, even though you know they are dead.  There is another problem you encounter, it happens when the narration begins to shift from Juan to the others.  You begin to distrust the narrator.  Now, I had read this whole story as if the narrator was speaking the truth the whole time and then it comes to the possibility that he was dead and the dead do not always speak the truth.  Now we have a problem, don't we?  Therein lies my confusion.