1. Analyze the three friends, Luong, Bien, and Quan. What happens to them and why? How does the fate of these relationships tie into the novel's central theme?

2. The novel opens with an eerie description of the Gorge of the Lost Souls in which nature is perceived as being full of supernatural elements. The novel consistently includes references to the supernatural and to the natural world. Why? What are these descriptions intended to do? Give a specific example and analyze its meaning in the novel.

3. Towards the end of the novel Quan does not execute an American journalist. He reflects on why he does not give the order to kill him when years earlier he would have. Why? What does this episode, located at the end of the novel indicate about his current values?