There seems to be roughly two types of teaching kokugo; while in one type you are taught a single correct way of reading, in the other you are offered various approaches to reading. But here I will suggest a third alternative to them from my own practice of teaching at high school. When I use “Sangetsu-ki” as a text, I often have difficulties in sharing a reading experience with the students. To overcome the problem here I turn to Minoru Tanaka's narrative theory, Chitose Koyama's teaching method that is built on Tanaka's argument about the “double context,” and Shin Takagi's study of “Sangetsu-ki” in which he denies the existence of privileged narration. Analyzing the complicated narrative structure of the text with the help of these critical works, I will also consider limitations inherent in narration, distinctions between a narrative and a novel, and the meaning of narrating itself.

In 2010 Haruki Murakami remade his short story into a novel, saying “I wanted to see whether another style of writing would be possible.” This is Nemuri. The new way of writing also challenges us to update our way of reading. Indeed, in spite of the author's aversion to plot-centered reading, most critics have focused on what his stories mean after the traditional method of interpretation. The aim of this paper is to identify a historical gap that lies between the short story “Nemuri” (1989) and the novel Nemuri, and then to find what kind of reading is possible after what Minoru Tanaka calls the poststructuralist crisis of the 80s in literary studies.

Modernization brought about not only economical but also aesthetic liberation. Freed from being a form of communal expression, art became more fragmented and subjective. Then there appeared criticism, the aim of which was precisely to bridge a gap between individuality and universality. As Kant says, however, any critical work itself is subjective after all, but nevertheless its primary task is still to seek after a certain truth. Thus the history of criticism is continually ridden by a dilemma between subjectivity and objectivity. Hannah Arendt proposes the concept of the “public table,” a discursive arena where individuals of different positions are dialectically united (Hegel might have called such discursive games “things” per se). And it is at the “public table” that the most important aspect of modern “universality” can be found.

In 1911 Sōseki Natsume applied his unique theory of literary tense to a short story “Tegami.” In this pilot experiment for the three major works in his late career, the main narrative written in past tense is framed in another narrative written in present tense. The temporal contrast is so elaborately constructed that it makes the story look like an object sculptured in relief. Referring to Harald Weinrich's study on tense and Paul J. Hopper's analysis of discourses, here I will examine the temporal structure of the story, focusing on the adverbs “yet” and “already” which are effectively used to make the most of a literary potentiality of present tense.