SANSHIRO (PENGUIN CLOTHBOUND CLASSICS) (HB)

Soseki's work of gentle humour and doomed innocence depicts twenty-three-year-old Sanshiro, a recent graduate from a provincial college, as he begins university life in the big city of Tokyo. Baffled and excited by the traffic, the academics and - most of all - the women, Sanshiro must find his way amongst the sophisticates that fill his new life. An incisive social and cultural commentary, Sanshiro is also a subtle study of first love, tradition and modernization, and the idealism of youth against the cynicism of middle age.