Abstract: What order should La Comédie humaine be read in? There are three possibilities: based on the chronology of the fiction, its composition, or its publication. None of these orders is entirely satisfactory, and, in the end, the idea that Balzac’s work might be unreadable begins to emerge, since this work unceasingly decomposes and reconfigures itself. It is therefore futile to seek a definite answer. Paradoxically, unreadability is the condition and the means of a true Balzacian reading.
