Natsume Soseki's only coming-of-age novel, Sanshiro depicts the
eponymous twenty-three-year-old protagonist as he leaves the sleepy
countryside to attend a university in the constantly moving real world
of Tokyo. Baffled and excited by the traffic, the academics, and-most of
all-the women, Sanshiro must find his way among the sophisticates that
fill his new life. An incisive social and cultural commentary,
Sanshiro is also a subtle portrait of first love, tradition, and
modernization, and the idealism of youth against the cynicism of middle
age.
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