I have been doing some medical research and smoking tobacco medicates
against the more serious onset of coeliac disease (gluten intolerance)
in an estimated 80 percent of cases who are smokers and also medicates
against schizophrenia which is another symptom of coeliac disease. Given
that coeliac disease can be fatal if it is not diagnosed early enough
smoking cigarettes can be a real life saver as well as saving your
sanity. (I should know, I smoke 25 cigarettes a day, my preferred brand
is Dunhill Premier in the red pack.) So it is obvious that bread can do
far more fatal harm then cigarettes ever could. It has also been noted
that patients in this group do not go on to get lung cancer. And further
to this coeliacs cannot take holy communion and so cannot go to heaven,
if the Pope is to be believed on these matters and so if you are a
coeliac you cannot be a true Christian. (something to do with Celtic
genes being incompatible with the true Roman faith in theology.)
I suspect Coleridge had coeliac disease, based on the symptoms reported
and his need for opium and his early demise. And according to
unconfirmed sources, Gore Vidal has CFS. CFS as an illness produces a
different relation to narrative which is more along the lines of the
concept of side-shadowing as proposed by Morson in _Narrative and
Freedom_. This goes some way toward resolving the difficulty and
sophistication of Vidal's narrative modality. I have still to invent an
illness for my two main characters... maybe an environmental
neuro-toxicity agent such as hydrocarbons gasses released from motor
vehicles and coal burning power stations and followed by desalination
plants built on the industrial wasteland left vacant by petrochemical
producers during an election campaign when the choice is no choice and
to decide is to be already chosen. Neuro toxic.
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