A classic of Chinese literature, this magnificent litany of mishaps begins on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, when Fang Hung-chien, with no particular goal in life and a bogus degree from a fake university in hand, returns home to Shanghai, meeting two Chinese beauties, Miss Su and Miss Pao, on the way. Fang eventually obtains a teaching post at a newly established university in the interior, where he encounters effete pseudo-intellectuals. Soon he falls into a marriage of Nabokovian proportions of distress and absurdity.