Young thinks, "tragedies don't inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn't get sprinkled out in fair proportions..." Do you agree? Was Pak naïve to try to frame the protestors?

On the day of the explosion, Young believes a lot has already gone wrong, and Pak is foolish for making additional changes to their routine. "Tragedies don't inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn't get sprinkled out in fair proportions," she thinks. "Bad things get hurled at you in clumps and batches, unmanageable and messy." Do you agree with her assessment of how bad things occur? Do you believe Pak was naïve in attempting to frame the protestors? Was he tempting fate?

I don't think everyone is safe from tragedies, and I do think some people get more than their share. But I do think that things just happen in a random way, not part of some "plan" or punishment. Life isn't fair. People have a hard time accepting that. I also think bad things occur when people don't talk to each other or act impulsively or nor consider other people might be involved. Just look around at what's happening now! There is nothing fair about what is happening in the world. People aren't being punished. Things just happen, not everything is in our control. Pak was naive to think he could do something so dangerous just to frame the protesters. He didn't consider for a moment that what he did that night might truly BE dangerous. He didn't think it through. He thought he was in charge,and he wasn't.

I'm not sure that I would call Pak naïve. He was not sure how to solve his problem and make his daughter happy. Framing the protestors seemed to be simple and relatively harmless. I doubt that anyone thinks one tragedy is a vaccine, so to speak, against other tragedies. I was curious about his name because Pak in the Indonesia language is a title for a man and basically just means Mister. An old man character in a remote jungle area, in the book In The Shadow of the Banyan - which I read years ago as an ARC from BookBrowse) was called only Pak and seemed to signify his lack of status in the Khmer Rouge society)

Things just happen, not everything is in our control. Pak was naive to think he could do something so dangerous just to frame the protesters. He didn't think it through. He thought he was in charge,and he wasn't.