To point out some inadequacies in the usual ways of studying and teaching literature, to emphasize that books exist primarily to be read by individual human beings, and to explore some of the questions which arise when it is seriously acknowledged that books require individual readers and readings, the author of this volume demonstrates that literary works necessitate a wide variety of responses. Numerous specific examples illustrate that the orderly and satisfying qualities of literature are often emphasized to the neglect of the powerful, disturbing qualities of a literary work. Objectivity and detachment are shown to be not only inadequate but also dangerous, and proposals are offered to critics and teachers for more meaningful, humane approaches to the study of literature. Individual chapters probe varieties of literary involvement, the divergence of responses, the "discomforts of reading," and the function of the narrator as a human presence in literature. (Two student papers, on Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, are appended.) (MF)