🕯️ In Memoriam
Some of the people in Above the Clouds have passed away. They are remembered here: how the book names them, their real names and dates where revealed, and how they appear in the book.
- Relation to the author
- Family elder
- In the book
- When I must choose a school after the entrance exam, she encourages me: "No one in the family has ever gone to university — if you get in, I'll give you five hundred yuan"; by the time I'm admitted she has passed away, but the words stay with me.
- Role in the book
- Embodies the book's core reflection, "a life is held up by a few sentences"; absent yet ever present as the family's support.
- Appears in
- Ch. 3 · Gate · Ch. 5 · Song
Real name: Wang Zhanlin · 1934—2020 · Reference ↗
- Relation to the author
- Leader
- In the book
- Appears with Aunt J and other campus and workplace figures.
- Role in the book
- Fills in the institutional setting of the university years.
- Appears in
- Ch. 7 · Sea
- Relation to the author
- Nick's father / pilot
- In the book
- A pilot who kept flying until his very last flight before retiring; his death makes Nick cry in a meeting.
- Role in the book
- An absent figure who explains Nick's emotional world.
- Appears in
- Ch. 10 · Valley