This article intends to show reading and critique strategies involved in five handwritten notebooks by Rhenish essayist Ernesto Volkening (1908-1982). The notebooks, one of the most singular reading journals written in Colombian literature, were composed in 1973 and were entirely dedicated to Scholia to an Implicit Text, an unpublished book by Nicolas Gomez Davila, which he read and commented. The article deals with Volkening's career as a critic and discusses the genologic theory involved in his choice of the note and reading journal as mediums to "respond" to the Scholia. The article intends to show four types of comments in his readings to reconstruct an unknown chapter in the history of literary criticism and marginalia in Colombia.