Will Farnaby is shipwrecked on Pala and injures himself while trying to climb a cliff at the island's edge.

Dr. Robert MacPhail arrives to help Will and arranges for him to be carried to hospital on a bamboo stretcher.

Susila MacPhail visits Will in hospital and hypnotizes him as a form of pain relief therapy.

Dr. Robert gives Will a copy of the Old Raja's manifesto outlining the philosophical foundations of Palanese governance.

Murugan visits Will and reveals that he is the Rani's son and will soon become Pala's new Raja.

The Rani and Rendang-Lobo ambassador Bahu visit Will, and all three agree in principle on an oil deal for Pala's reserves.

Will confesses to Susila that he cheated on his wife Molly and slept with his affair partner on the night of Molly's funeral.

Dr. Robert grants Will a month's stay on Pala as a temporary visitor after Will asks to remain following his recovery.

Will recovers enough to walk and visits the Experimental Station, where he catches Murugan secretly reading a Sears and Roebuck catalog.

Will witnesses a coming-of-age ceremony at a mountain Shiva temple, where young people climb cliffs and take Moksha medicine.

Will tours the Palanese school and observes a holistic education system blending formal academic subjects with Eastern philosophy and meditation.

Murugan delivers a letter from the Rani giving Will power of attorney to immediately finalize the oil deal with Joe Aldehyde.

Will refuses to participate in finalizing the oil deal, marking a significant rejection of his original capitalist mission to Pala.

Will accompanies Susila to the hospital and witnesses Lakshmi's peaceful, guided death as Dr. Robert says farewell to his wife.

Murugan announces over a loudspeaker that Pala is joining Rendang-Lobo, and gunshots ring out from the direction of Dr. Robert's headquarters.

Will Farnaby washes up injured on the utopian island of Pala and is cared for by the island's intellectual leader, Dr. Robert MacPhail. During his recovery, Will discovers that he has been secretly tasked with negotiating an oil deal that would industrialize the island, and he meets Murugan, the future Raja who shares ambitions to Westernize Pala. As Will heals, he witnesses Palanese ceremonies, education, and philosophy, and undergoes deep emotional therapy with Susila MacPhail that gradually transforms his cynical worldview. When Murugan delivers papers empowering Will to finalize the oil deal, Will refuses, demonstrating that Pala has genuinely changed him. The novel ends with Murugan's military annexation of Pala as gunshots ring out and the utopian experiment is brought to a violent close.

Will's journey from shipwrecked cynic to the fall of Pala.

Dr. Robert's grandchildren Mary Sarojini and Tom Krishna discover the injured Will on the beach; Tom runs off to find help.

Will recognizes the teenager Murugan among the curious onlookers as he is carried on a stretcher toward the hospital.

Nurse Radha tells Will how American doctors who recently visited Pala treated only the abstract mind and ignored the whole person.

Radha and her boyfriend Ranga explain to Will the Palanese birth control technique called Maithuna and the island's acceptance of gay individuals.

A poem written by Susila falls from the Old Raja's book, and Susila discusses how Palanese community child-rearing differs from Western family structures.

Dr. Robert tells Will how his Scottish grandfather Andrew MacPhail co-founded Pala's utopian society through an unlikely medical friendship with the Raja.

Will, Dr. Robert, Vijaya, and Murugan drive toward the mountains while Murugan makes contemptuous comments about Palanese culture throughout the journey.

A messenger arrives at the Shiva temple with an urgent note from the Rani, cutting the ceremony short and forcing the group to return.

The Rani calls Will to warn him that rival oil companies have entered negotiations and the deal must be confirmed immediately.

Vijaya escorts Will through the town center, where Will watches a young girl place a white orchid at a Bodhisattva statue.

At Vijaya's home, Will learns that Vijaya's wife Shanta was artificially inseminated with a donor's sperm when the couple decided to have a third child.

Mary Sarojini and Tom Krishna arrive at Vijaya's house with other children, illustrating the Mutual Adoption Club's communal approach to raising children.

The Rani and Murugan reappear at the school and the Rani condemns the Buddha and Christian god scarecrows as deeply blasphemous.

Mary Sarojini interrupts Will and Susila's therapy session to report that Lakshmi's condition has taken a severe turn for the worse.

After Will's Moksha experience, he and Susila share an intimate and sensual connection by touching each other's faces, which does not lead to sex.

Will's introduction to Pala begins with Dr. Robert's grandchildren finding him on the beach, and his early days in hospital expose him to Palanese customs around sexuality, medicine, and community child-rearing. He learns about Pala's practice of artificial insemination, its acceptance of diverse sexuality, and its holistic approach to health that treats mind and body together rather than as separate concerns. As Will becomes mobile, he travels the island with Vijaya and observes how families, schools, and rituals reflect Pala's deep commitment to communal well-being and presence, including the Mutual Adoption Club system. The Rani and her allies add mounting tension by pressuring Will on the oil deal and expressing open contempt for Palanese traditions, including condemning the school's symbolic scarecrows as blasphemous. The pool closes as Will's Moksha experience produces a profound, non-sexual intimacy with Susila, signaling his full arrival into the Palanese way of being.

The community, customs, and conflicts shaping life on Pala.

The first words of the novel are spoken by a mynah bird trained to chant "attention" as Will drifts in and out of consciousness.

Will reveals to Dr. Robert that beyond his journalism credentials, he is secretly acting for capitalist Joe Aldehyde to negotiate Pala's oil rights.

Dr. Robert visits his terminally ill wife Lakshmi, who credits herself with teaching him to stay grounded in the present moment and the real world.

After the Rani departs, Bahu stays behind and presses Will to write a formal letter to Joe Aldehyde spelling out the oil deal's terms.

Will asks Susila for her help processing his emotional pain, marking the first time he has genuinely sought psychological assistance from anyone.

Dr. Robert tells Will that Pala has no military and that an appeal to the United Nations is their only defense against Rendang-Lobo.

Murugan dismissively calls Pala's sacred Moksha mushrooms "dope," provoking Dr. Robert to challenge the Western-conditioned contempt behind the label.

At the temple, Dr. Robert explains to the assembled young people that the cliff-climbing ritual is "applied ethics" that builds courage and empathy.

Will visits a meditation room and views a realistic landscape painting, sparking a discussion contrasting Eastern realism with Western expressionism in art.

At Vijaya's home, Will discovers that the Palanese version of saying grace means attentively focusing on the sensory details of the food being eaten.

Under hypnosis with Susila, Will recounts his dog Tiger's death and his Aunt Mary's death as his first encounters with what he calls the "Essential Horror."

Will and Susila debate whether death and suffering can be accepted, with Susila arguing that an enlightened person eats, drinks, and dies with a difference.

Will watches a Palanese puppet adaptation of Oedipus Rex in which key events of the Greek tragedy have been altered to reflect Palanese values.

Will's Moksha hallucinations include a female praying mantis cannibalizing a male, a disturbing vision mixed with waves of euphoria and well-being.

Will listens to a Bach recording during his Moksha experience and realizes with certainty that he has never truly heard music until this moment.

From the opening mynah bird's call for attention, the novel signals that Will's capacity for presence is its central concern, and early revelations establish his hidden mission to deliver Pala's oil to a Western capitalist. Key confrontations expose Pala's fragility — it has no military and only the United Nations to appeal to — while Murugan's contempt for Palanese customs, such as dismissing Moksha mushrooms as dope, foreshadows his eventual betrayal of the island. Will's deepening therapy with Susila forces him to confront his lifelong terror of death, rooted in the losses of his dog and beloved Aunt Mary, and the two wrestle with whether suffering and mortality can ever be truly accepted. Watching the Palanese adaptation of Oedipus Rex and later taking the Moksha medicine himself, Will finally achieves the embodied presence and sensory awareness that Pala has been modelling for him throughout the novel. These turning points culminate in his refusal of the oil deal and his transcendent experience of Bach, marking his complete personal transformation even as the island itself is lost.