How do you interpret The Fragile?

[Sesquipedalism]

I'm always scared to start new threads, for fear of moderator Redundant/Stupid Thread Smackdown. But I figured I'd make an exception here since it'd be cool if this became its own conversation.

I was talking with my wife tonight and something came out of my mouth that was rather unexpected which, in itself, is a bit unexpected outside of Being John Malkovitch.Most double albums have a "Disc 1" and a "Disc 2" (or and A/B)—I can only think of Smashing Pumpkins Mellon Collie right now—and you listen to Disc 1 first because 1 comes before 2. (I remember some of the posts from the "'Everything' Debuts on Zane Lowe" thread and this news may apparently shock some people on ETS right now). I've always only played The Fragile,as Left then Right. I was never instructed to do this; when it arrived on my doorstep, I was woefully out of the NIN loop, too busy chasing blow to be bothered with music news. That's just how I played the discs, and it occurs to me now that that's because I'm American and assume everything goes from left to right, since I read that way. I tried a run through the other way, Right then Left, and you can certainly read/interpret it as a story, albeit a significantly different one.

So, my question: Did Reznor ever specifically state that the "Left" disc thematically comes before the "Right" disc?

*(Possible) Evidence that the traditional reading—Left is "supposed to" be before Right—is the "correct" one.
-The '99 blog posts about changing the end of "Somewhat Damaged" to be more confrontational to open the album.
-I don't know for sure, but I assume the cassette edition was a double cassette, and there's a chance that it's divided differently. NINWiki hasn't been loading for me today, so I can't currently check myself.
-I also don't know what the vinyls were called, nor do I recall if it was a 3xLP or a 4xLP. If they're, say A/B, C/D, E/F, & H/G, this whole idea is pretty much buggered.

I've got some other thoughts on this whole issue that I'll post below, so as not to turn a simple question into a text wall, for those reading on mobiles.

*And even if he did, for the other critical theory geeks who fall into the "once it's out in the world, the text belongs at least partially to the reader" school, does it matter?