很久没有读过这样扣人心弦的小说了,记得上一次有这种爱不释手的感觉还是在高铁上读《三体》。一方面,作者讲述故事的方式非常精巧,细节和铺垫特别多,让人感觉既真实又意料之外。另一方面,因为作者的母语并不是英语,所以读英文原版就没有那么的吃力。好像和他一起在学习各种进阶词汇和表达一样,非常适合我。
读完后的感受颇多,很多人都写过主人公自己的背叛和救赎,这篇我想聚焦在另一个主要的角色上:Baba,主人公 Amir 的父亲。
善于经营
文章开篇就介绍了 Amir 家境的优越,而这一切都可以归功于 Baba:
Everyone agreed that my father, my Baba, had built the most beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district, a new and affluent neighborhood in the northern part of Kabul. Some thought it was the prettiest house in all of Kabul.
Baba proved them all wrong by not only running his own business but becoming one of the richest merchants in Kabul. Baba and Rahim Khan built a wildly successful carpet-exporting business, two pharmacies, and a restaurant.
Baba 不但是一位成功的商人,而且他还非常乐善好施。一个具体的例子就是他投入了巨大的精力和财力,花费了三年时间建设了一座孤儿院。在开业典礼上,Baba 做了一场精心准备的演讲,虽然还有些滑稽的场面,但最终赢得了大家经久不息的热烈掌声。
此外,Baba 还是一位非常活跃的社交家,这一点在 Amir 10 岁生日聚会上体现得淋漓尽致。
Baba’s motto about throwing parties was this: Invite the whole world or it’s not a party. I remember scanning over the invitation list a week before my birthday party and not recognizing at least three-quarters of the four hundred-plus Kakas and Khalas who were going to bring me gifts and congratulate me for having lived to thirteen. Then I realized they weren’t really coming for me. It was my birthday, but I knew who the real star of the show was.
The night before the big party Baba’s friend Del-Muhammad, who owned a kabob house in Shar-e-Nau, came to the house with his bags of spices. Like the butcher, Del-Muhammad – or Dello, as Baba called him – refused payment for his services. He said Baba had done enough for his family already. It was Rahim Khan who whispered to me, as Dello marinated the meat, that Baba had lent Dello the money to open his restaurant. Baba had refused repayment until Dello had shown up one day in our driveway in a Benz and insisted he wouldn’t leave until Baba took his money.
第一次读到这段内容的时候,我脑中浮现的是教父在女儿婚礼上的那一幕幕经典场景,众人环绕,德高望重。
毫无疑问,有如此一位成功的父亲,Amir 是十足幸运的。