I'm really confused here!
Some dead people, people who were too sensitive to live: Sylvia Plath, Van Gough, Virginia Woolf, Jackson Pollock, Promo Levi, Kurt Cobain, of course. Some alive people: George W.Bush, Arnold Schwazenegger, Osama Bin Laden. Put a cross next to the people you might want to have a drink with, and then see whether they're on the dead side or the alive side. And, yeah, you could point out that I have stacked the deck, that there are a couple of people missing from my 'alive' list who might fuck up my argument, a few poets and musicians and so on. And you could also point out that Stalin and Hitler weren't so great, and they're no longer with us. But indulge me anyway: you know what I'm talking about. Sensitive people find it harder to stick around.
-- A paragraph from 'A Long Way Down' by Nick Hornby.
My questions are,
① Why by putting a cross next to people one can tell that they are noble or disgusting?
② Since Stalin didn't kill himself, then why he takes Stalin as an example here?The speaker, his name is JJ, wants to commit suicide. He is full of artistic sensibility.

Question

I'm really confused here!
 Some dead people, people who were too sensitive to live: Sylvia Plath, Van Gough, Virginia Woolf, Jackson Pollock, Promo Levi, Kurt Cobain, of course. Some alive people: George W.Bush, Arnold Schwazenegger, Osama Bin Laden. Put a cross next to the people you might want to have a drink with, and then see whether they're on the dead side or the alive side. And, yeah, you could point out that I have stacked the deck, that there are a couple of people missing from my 'alive' list who might fuck up my argument, a few poets and musicians and so on. And you could also point out that Stalin and Hitler weren't so great, and they're no longer with us. But indulge me anyway: you know what I'm talking about. Sensitive people find it harder to stick around.
 -- A paragraph from 'A Long Way Down' by Nick Hornby.
 My questions are, 
 ① Why by putting a cross next to people one can tell that they are noble or disgusting?
 ② Since Stalin didn't kill himself, then why he takes Stalin as an example here?The speaker, his name is JJ, wants to commit suicide. He is full of artistic sensibility.

Answer

The writer asks you to look over the list, and mark a cross (X) next to whomever you'd like to have a drink with. The X is your own choice.  His point is that you would prefer the sensitive-but-dead artists over the random options of people who are still alive.

For Stalin and Hitler it's a much simpler similarity: they are both dead, and disliked.  Nothing to do with the methods of their deaths.

Answer

Peachey, 你的回答跟你的人一样帅！！！