評論
打印
12歲的阿富汗富家少爺阿米爾與仆人哈桑情同手足。然而，在一場風箏比賽后，發生了一件悲慘不堪的事，阿米爾為自己的懦弱感到自責和痛苦，逼走了哈桑，不久，自己也跟隨父親逃往美國。
成年后的阿米爾始終無法原諒自己當年對哈桑的背叛。為了贖罪，阿米爾再度踏上暌違二十多年的故鄉，希望能為不幸的好友盡最后一點心力，卻發現一個驚天謊言，兒時的噩夢再度重演，阿米爾該如何抉擇？小說如此殘忍而又美麗，作者以溫暖細膩的筆法勾勒人性的本質與救贖，讀來令人蕩氣回腸。
When I was in fifth grade, we had a mullah who taught us about Islam. His name was Mullah Fatiullah Khan, a short, stubby man with a face full of acne scars and a gruff voice. He lectured us about the virtues of "zakat" and the duty of "hadj"; he taught us the intricacies of performing the five daily "namaz" prayers, and made us memorize verses from the Koran—and though he never translated the words for us, he did stress, sometimes with the help of a stripped willow branch, that we had to pronounce the Arabic words correctly so God would hear us better. He told us one day that Islam considered drinking a terrible sin; those who drank would answer for their sin on the day of “Qiyamat”, Judgment Day. In those days, drinking was fairly common in Kabul. No one gave you a public lashing for it, but those Afghans who did drink did so in private, out of respect. People bought their scotch as "Medicine"in brown paper bags from selected "pharmacies."They would leave with the bag tucked out of sight, sometimes drawing furtive, disapproving glances from those who knew about the store's reputation for such transactions.
We were upstairs in Baba's study, the smoking room, when I told him what Mullah Fatiullah Khan had taught us in class. Baba was pouring himself a whiskey from the bar he had built in the corner of the room. He listened, nodded, took a sip from his drink. Then he lowered himself into the leather sofa, put down his drink, and propped me up on his lap. I felt as if I were sitting on a pair of tree trunks. He took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose, the air hissing through his mustache for what seemed an eternity I couldn't decide whether I wanted to hug him or leap from his lap in mortal fear.
