This chapter revisits philosopher Simone Weil’s notion of reading and, by extension, how it relates to her concept of attention to propose new protocols of textual engagement with the aim of intervening in current debates about literary criticism and its value. It suggests that Weil’s ideas have much to contribute to the reorientation of the methods and ends of the field, encouraging among other things a reassessment of the relationship between reader and text, the value of interpretation, the method of close reading, the connection between meaning and affect, and the idea of critique as principally a project of exposure. This is because Weil’s thought, which invites faith, openness, and bondage, stands in stark contrast with much of the assumptions that are privileged in the historicist/contextualist approaches—that is to say, an emphasis on suspicion, anticipation, and mastery. In addition, since there is in Weil a relentless synchronization of thought and practice, her peculiar practice of reading could also be reasonably conceived as a genuine expression of her philosophy. But while at the farthest end the objective of this essay is to reimagine the future practice of criticism as also potentially a Weilian ethical enterprise, the more immediate agenda of this essay is a fairly modest one: to offer a brief reflection on Weil’s notion of reading to render slightly more concrete her concept of attention by suggesting that reading for Weil may lead one to an experiential understanding of “watching, waiting, attention.” I suggest that Weil identifies two modes of reading: the first, reading that involves being seized by sensation, and the second, reading that cultivates attention (attention developed within the idiom of her philosophy). I examine her ‘Essay on the Notion of Reading’ and her ‘Spiritual Autobiography’ to elaborate on those two modes of reading.