Remember how condescending Joyce is in Portrait of the Artist to a friend for remembering something by thinking back to where he was and what he was eating when it happened? It is so like some Irish Catholics I know to have that condemnatory attitude toward the body (not you, Lal! & not Johnny either). They dismiss the physical self, live in head and heart as though there were no body. Your mind is part of your body: Isn’t that most clear when you have a cold & your brain is fuzzy? Or is your brain woolly, therefore you get a cold? Does foggy thinking cause illness? A dampness of the brain that settles in the lungs? Am I getting sick because I can’t write a stupid article for a stupid magazine? Does the Nobel Prize prevent (cure) illness? Which Joyce never won. AND he was a terrible hypochondriac. QED.
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