Sorrow

Well, you brought this on yourself. Not only were you browsing the Russian classics section - literature with a reputation so dour and depressing that it has reached meme status, but when you on top of that pick out the one book titled "e;Sorrow"e;, we can only imagine that you've taken the advice of the people complaining about your sunny disposition and the spring in your step. Fortunately, you're in good hands as Chekhov is a virtuoso of the moody human blues.The plot is very simple: An old man must take his wife to the hospital before she expires. Then we learn that it's a 20 mile trip on an awful road, that it's biting cold and snowing, that the man is an alcoholic (and a mean one at that), that his horse is a wreck and then real adversity eventually sets in.Still, Russian literature is famous for a reason - and that reason might just be its similarity to Finnish sauna tradition: That sometimes you have to go roll around naked in the cold, cold snow to truly appreciate the nice, relaxing warmth you have around you.-