“Powers of Reading” is a patient, brilliant, and illuminating inquiry into the crosscurrents of voice and address, one that speaks to the speed and complexity of our time, how we are upended by our forward propulsions, to consider how multiple voice, action, and passivity are all rearranged in the scene of reading. Peter Szendy offers a subtle, persuasive, and unprecedented account of the time of reading and its scene of address, one that is as archaic as it is contemporary. The reader stays cl
