I've made a less than completely firm resolution to read all of Dickens' novels, including rereading the ones I read as a youngster, when I was too young to appreciate them fully.

Pickwick is Dickens' first novel, and the first few chapters do indeed come across as 'prentice work. This is understandable, especially given the circumstances under which this serialized novel was undertaken, which Dickens describes in a preface.

The novel has no plot to speak of; it consists of more or less episodic adventures of Pickwick and his companions. The lack of plot is another result of the hurried circumstances under which the novel was written. It seems particularly unfocused for the first nine chapters (of 67). Then, in chapter ten, we are introduced to Sam Weller, later to become Pickwick's valet, the most enjoyable character in the book. From that point the novel becomes more coherent.

The narrative is interrupted from time to time by unrelated stories, introduced by somewhat artificial means, such as having a character tell a story or finding the story in a manuscript in an inn. These are generally less interesting than the main narrative, but one of them is worth remarking on. It's the story of Gabriel Grub, a misanthropic sexton and grave-digger. One Christmas eve Grub goes to the graveyard, on his way striking a boy because he was merrily singing. In the graveyard Grub is visited by ghosts, who frighten him and transport him to scenes of family happiness and the like. On Christmas morning Gabriel wakes up a changed man. Ring a bell?

Another passage that caught my attention, from chapter 50: "[T]he waiter imperceptibly melted away. Waiters never walk or run. They have a peculiar and mysterious power of skimming out of rooms, which other mortals possess not." I would love to find a copy of P.G. Wodehouse's Pickwick from his Dulwich days and see whether the young Plum had marked that passage for later use.