<DIV>Natsume Soseki's only coming-of-age novel, <I>Sanshiro</I> 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, <I>Sanshiro</I> is also a subtle portrait of first love, tradition, and modernization, and the idealism of youth against the cynicism of middle age. <br><BR><BR><BR></DIV>