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> If you do this, be sure to read something lighter afterward, like perhaps Anna Karenina’s suicide scene, or a biography of Sylvia Plath

Nobody, including the author, seems to have mentioned the cultural aspect in all this. Allow me:

Q: What is the difference between a Russian optimist and a Russian pessimist?

A: A Russian pessmist thinks that things can't get any worse. A Russian optimist thinks they not only can, but will.

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Im currently reading Archipel Gulag from Alexander Solschenitzyn and that joke sounds quite familliar. The reality of the past century in Russia really proved optimists wrong. Devestating to read that book. It literally puts me on breaks to just sit and think. Sad that humans are capable of such cruelty.

Keep in mind that this book was written in USA

Actually, Solzhenitsyn was still residing in the USSR at the time of completion of the book.

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