Vocabulary
1.veracity n. 真诚，诚实
But no one ever doubted the veracity of any story about Baba.
2. obstinate adj. 固执的
Of course, Baba refused, and everyone shook their heads in dismay at his obstinate ways.
3. scraggy adj. 瘦的
I watched him swing his scraggy leg in a sweeping arc, watched his whole body tilt impossibly to the right every time he planted that foot.
I shambled about the field on scraggy legs, squalled for passes that never came my way.
Summary
After a phone call from Rahim Khan, an old friend in Pakistan, Amir refers back to the winter of 1975, when he became whom he was today and obliquely mentions an event that occurred in an alley when he was twelve years old.
As a child, Amir lives luxuriously in a posh house in Kabul, Afghanistan, with his Baba. Ali and his son, Hassan, are their servants from a persecuted local ethnic minority. Amir's mother died when giving birth to him, and Hassan's mom ran off soon after the child was born. Two kids share the same wet nurse as well as their childhood together. Hassan is skilled with a slingshot and never denies Amir, even his unethical requests. Amir, on the other hand, is more a coward than a good friend Hassan’s father, Ali, suffers from paralysis of his lower facial muscles, and polio left him with a twisted right leg. When Amir was eight years old, Ali caught Amir making fun of him, but Ali never said anything about it. One event occurs when Amir and Hassan were taking a forbidden shortcut through the military barracks. A soldier insults Hassan because of his gorgeous but “notoriously unscrupulous” mother. Hassan cries in the darkened movie theater, and Amir tries his best to comfort his friend.
Amir's father, Baba, was a successful business man who did all the things people skeptic he could not do. Though he had no training as an architect, he designed and built an orphanage. Though nobody thought he would marry well because he wasn’t from a noticeable family, he married Amir’s mother, Sofia Akrami, a beautiful, intelligent woman who came from a royal bloodline. After learning a lesson in school about the sinful nature of drinking alcohol, Amir uses this as a springboard for a discussion with his father. Baba makes a comment that all sins are a variation of the one and only sin — theft.
Amir seeks to please Baba by being more like him but failed mostly. Amir is somewhat jealous of the physical contact that his father had with Hassan. He also admits feeling responsible for his mother’s death. What Amir is good at is poetry and reading. However, he worries his father does not see these as manly pursuits. The incident with the sporting matches illustrates the differences between them. Later, Amir overhears Baba talking to his close friend, Rahim Khan. While Rahim Khan is taking Amir's side, Baba more fully enunciates his primary concern about Amir, which is the inability to stand up for himself. The morning after eavesdropping on his father's conversation, Amir snaps at Hassan to release his anger.
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