追风筝的人经典书评 残忍而美丽的情谊:The Kite Runner 追风筝的人(6)

残忍而美丽的情谊:The Kite Runner 追风筝的人(6)  

成年后的阿米尔始终无法原谅自己当年对哈桑的背叛。为了赎罪，阿米尔再度踏上暌违二十多年的故乡，希望能为不幸的好友尽最后一点心力，却发现一个惊天谎言，儿时的噩梦再度重演，阿米尔该如何抉择？小说如此残忍而又美丽，作者以温暖细腻的笔法勾勒人性的本质与救赎，读来令人荡气回肠。
As confided to a neighbor's servant by the garrulous midwife
who had then in turn told anyone who would listen
Sanaubar had taken one glance at the baby in Ali's arms
seen the cleft lip
and barked a bitter laughter.
"There
" she had said. "Now you have your own idiot child to do all your smiling for you!" She had refused to even hold Hassan
and just five days later
she was gone.
Baba hired the same nursing woman who had fed me to nurse Hassan. Ali told us she was a blue-eyed Hazara woman from Bamiyan
the city of the giant Buddha statues. "What a sweet singing voice she had
"he used to say to us.
What did she sing
Hassan and I always asked
though we already knew--Ali had told us countless times. We just wanted to hear Ali sing.
He'd clear his throat and begin:
"On a high mountain I stood

And cried the name of Ali
Lion of God.
O Ali
Lion of God
King of Men

Bring joy to our sorrowful hearts."
Then he would remind us that there was a brotherhood beeen people who had fed from the same breast
a kinship that not even time could break.
Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And
under the same roof
we spoke our first words.
Mine was "Baba".
His was "Amir". My name.
Looking back on it now
I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975—and all that followed—was already laid in those first words.

重点精讲：
confide v. 吐露
She confided to me the secret.
她向我吐露了那个祕密。
Nowadays girls seldom confide in their mothers.
现在的女孩很少对母亲吐露心事。
garrulous adj. 多嘴的，饶舌的（尤指对琐事）
My garrulous neighbour had given away the secret.
我那爱唠叨的邻居已把祕密泄露了.
A garrulous woman is surely not a social figure with good grace and cultivation.
饶舌的女人肯定不是有风度教养的社交人物。
nurse v. 照顾
We'll have to put the baby to nurse.
我们只能请人照看婴孩。
He insisted on staying up to nurse the child.
他坚持不懈来护理这个小孩。
remind v. 提醒
I feel it is absolutely necessary for me to remind him of the meeting today.
我觉得绝对有必要提醒他今天要开会。
feed v. 靠……为生，以……为食
They feed on plankton
the sea's drifting life.
它们吃以浮游生物为生。
Dor locate flying insects on which they feed.
或者找到它们赖以为生的昆虫。
“看吧，”她说，“现在你有了这个白痴儿子，他可以替你笑了！”她不愿抱着哈桑，仅仅五天之后，她离开了。
爸爸雇佣了那个喂过我的奶妈给哈桑哺乳。阿里跟我们说她是个蓝眼睛的哈扎拉女人，来自巴米扬Bamiyan，阿富汗城市，在喀布尔西北150公里处。，那座城市有巨大的佛陀塑像。“她唱歌的嗓子可甜了！”他常常这么说。
她唱什么歌呢？哈桑跟我总是问，虽然我们已经知道--阿里已经告诉过我们无数次了，我们只是想听阿里唱。
他清了清喉咙，放声唱起来：
我站在高高的山上
呼唤阿里的名字，神灵的狮子
啊～阿里，神灵的狮子，凡人的国王
给我悲伤的心灵带来喜悦
然后他会提醒我们，喝过同样的乳汁长大的人就是兄弟，这种亲情连时间也无法拆散。
哈桑跟我喝过同样的乳汁。我们在同一个院子里的同一片草坪上迈出第一步。还有，在同一个屋顶下，我们说出第一个词。
我说的是“爸爸”。
他说的是“阿米尔”。我的名字。
如今回头看来，我认为1975年冬天发生的事情——以及随后所有的事情--早已在这两个字里埋下根源。