ABSTRACT
From a Formalist perspective, one might say “reading novelistically” means recognizing in any given story a host of literary devices that deform everyday narrative in a special way. The comic plot, has no demands save one: that the reader must always be moving somewhere, anywhere. In the comic plot, characters need not be understood—their movement alone can be the object of the reader’s desire. Because Pickwick is a comic story, it stands to reason that it can be read comically, and our failure to read it comically stems, in part, from our inability (or unwillingness) to recognize and understand comic plots. A comic reading of Pickwick, however, inevitably disrespects the rules and conventions of the novelistic form. All of the loose ends, dead ends, contradictions, questions, and inconsistencies that are characteristic of Pickwick as monthly serialization are welcomed in a comic reading.
