A Ph.D. candidate at a Chinese university tends the bedside of one of his professors, who is also his girlfriends father and who in his illness and delirium rants about his past: his counterrevolutionary activities, his adulterous affairs, his dissatisfaction with his scholarly career. Inspired by the old man, the student gives up his own ambitions--and becomes one of the protestors in Tiananmen Square. A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.