KR

Question 1

‘something, someone, somewhere, had decided…

Answer 1

…to deny me fatherhood for the things I had done. Maybe this was punishment, and perhaps justly so’

Question 2

‘I could almost feel the emptiness in…

Answer 2

…Soraya’s womb, like it was a living breathing thing.’

Question 3

(America is) ‘someplace with no ghosts, …

Answer 3

…no memories and no sin’

Question 4

‘there is only one sin, only one…

Answer 4

…And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.’ (Baba is guilty of the theft of Ali’s wife, and perhaps of depriving Amir of self-worth/confidence)

Question 5

Amir is the only thing not ‘…’ to Baba’s ‘liking’.

Answer 5

‘moulded’
Almost every story of Baba includes him affecting the world around him - Amir is a stark juxtaposition to this.

Question 6

‘I always felt like Baba…

Answer 6

…hated me a little’

Question 7

‘I had killed [Baba’s]…

Answer 7

…beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I?’

Question 8

‘Children aren’t colouring books…

Answer 8

…You don’t get to fill them in with your favourite colours’

Question 9

‘A boy who won’t stand up for himself…

Answer 9

…becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything’

Question 10

‘Hassan steps in and…

Answer 10

fends [the neighbourhood boys] off’

Question 11

How does Amir respond to Hassan’s finding of a plot hole in his story?

Answer 11

He thinks: ‘What does he know, that illiterate Hazara? He’ll never be anything but a cook’
The gunfire - a change

Question 12

How does Amir lord his literacy over Hassan?

Answer 12

When Hassan asks what ‘imbecile’ means, Amir misleads and ridicules him, telling him it means ‘smart, intelligent’, saying ‘Hassan is an imbecile’

Question 13

‘But he’s not my friend…

Answer 13

I almost blurted out. He’s my servant’

Question 14

‘Why did I play with Hassan only …

Answer 14

…when no one else was around?’

Question 15

‘I wondered briefly…

Answer 15

…what it must be like to live with such an ingrained sense of one’s place in a hierarchy’

Question 16

‘he was just a Hazara, …

Answer 16

… wasn’t he?

Question 17

‘I ran because…

Answer 17

…I was a coward’

Question 18

How does Amir describe his presents?

Answer 18

‘blood money’

Question 19

‘Baba loved the idea…

Answer 19

…of America’

Question 20

In what chapter does Amir receive the phone call from Rahim Khan?

Answer 20

14

Question 21

in what chapter does Amir visit Rahim Khan in Peshawar?

Answer 21

15 - 18

Question 22

‘fifteen years after I had buried him…

Answer 22

…I was learning that Baba had been a thief’

Question 23

Amir: ‘like father, …

Answer 23

… like son’
His indignation is misplaced, his actions were far worse.

Question 24

What happens when Farid accuses Amir of always having been a ‘tourist’ in Afghanistan?

Answer 24

• He has a bout of motion sickness.
• It reflects his weakness and inability to cope with the pressures of life.

Question 25

In what chapter does Amir receive Hassan's letter?

Answer 25

17

Question 26

e'a towering...

Answer 26

... Pashtun specimen'

Question 27

How does Amir describe Sanaubar?

Answer 27

'a beautiful but notoriously unscrupulous woman who lived up to her dishonourable reputation'

Question 28

A: 'My body was broken...but I felt...

Answer 28

...healed. Healed at last. I laughed'

Question 29

B: 'war doesn't negate decency...

Answer 29

...It demands it, even more than in times of peace'

Question 30

'but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it...

Answer 30

.... Because the past claws its way out.'

Question 31

'Huddled together in the dining room and waiting for the sun to rise, ...

Answer 31

...none of us had any notion that a way of life had ended.' ch 5

Question 32

'I actually aspired to cowardice, because the alternative, the real reason I was running, was ...

Answer 32

...that Assef was right: Nothing was free in this world.'

Question 33

'Maybe Hassan was the price I had to pay, ...

Answer 33

...the lamb I had to slay, to win Baba.'

Question 34

'Either way, thus much had become clear: ...

Answer 34

...one of us had to go'

Question 35

'For me, America was place to bury my memories....

Answer 35

...For Baba, a place to mourn his'

Question 36

'That's how i escaped my father's aloofness...

Answer 36

...in my dead mother's books. That and Hassan, of course.'

Question 37

What happens when Amir is about to respond to Hassan' criticism of his story?

Answer 37

- A loud noise - 'I never got to finish that sentence. Because suddenly Afghanistan changed forever.'

Question 38

'that was thee winter that...

Answer 38

...Hassan stopped smiling (CH5)

Question 39

When does Amir's voice shift to the present tense?

Answer 39

When Sohrab attempts suicide.

Question 40

'What a tight...

Answer 40

...little sugary c**t she had!' (Ch 2, pg 7)

Question 41

'Did he know I knew?...

Answer 41

...what would I see if I did look in his eyes? Blame? Indignation? Or, God forbid, what I feared most: guileless devotion?

Question 42

'Now you have your own...

Answer 42

...idiot child to do all your smiling for you' Ch.2

Question 43

'She had refused to even...

Answer 43

...hold Hassan' Ch2

Question 44

'I already hated all the kids he was...

Answer 44

...building the orphanage for; sometimes I wished they'd all died along with their parents' ch.3

Question 45

'Despite Baba's success...

Answer 45

...people were always doubting him...Baba proved them wrong' ch.3

Question 46

'Remember Amir Agha...

Answer 46

...There's no monster, just a beautiful day' ch.7

Question 47

'That she never sing in public had been...

Answer 47

...one of the general's conditions when they had married' ch.13

Question 48

'I can never tell Baba...

Answer 48

...from the bear' Ch. 3

Question 49

'I almost apologised, then didn't. Hassan understood I was just nervous...

Answer 49

...Hassan always understood about me' ch. 7

Question 50

it had seeped into our marriage, that emptiness, ...

Answer 50

... into our laughs and our love making.' end of Ch13

Question 51

'And late at night, in the darkness of our room ...

Answer 51

... I'd feel it rising from Soraya and settling between us. Sleeping between us. Like a new-born child.' end of ch13

Question 52

''But I wonder'' he added. ''Would you ever ask me to ...

Answer 52

... do such a thing, Amir agha?'' And just like that, he had thrown at me his own little test...test my integrity' ch6

Question 53

'Baba and I lived in the same house..

Answer 53

...but in different spheres of existence' ch 6

Question 54

'I envied her. Her secret was out...

Answer 54

...Spoken. Dealt with.' Chapter 12

Question 55

'one of [Baba's] greatest fears: ...

Answer 55

...than an Afghan would see him buying food with charity money'

Question 56

'Because history isn't easy to overcome. Neither is religion..

Answer 56

...In the end, I was Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi'a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing' ch4

Question 57

'I have to have my face rubbed in it...

Answer 57

...for the rest of my life'

Question 58

'This was Hassan's final sacrifice for me..

Answer 58

...I wasn't worthy of this sacrifice; I was a liar, a cheat, and a thief' ch9

Question 59

'Afghans cherish custom...

Answer 59

...but abhor rules' ch6

Question 60

'tell him I'll take a thousand of his bullets...

Answer 60

...before i let this indecency take place' ch10

Question 61

'maybe, just maybe, I would finally be pardoned...

Answer 61

...for killing my mother' ch7

Question 62

a pair of steel hands closed...

Answer 62

... around [his] windpipe

Question 63

my father, my Baba, had built the most ...

Answer 63

... beautiful house in the Wazir Akbar Khan district