Your new cat is a very pretty cat. A sleep, sweet, pretty cat, who looks like she will be a very restful friend.

I loved this:

I once said to Mike Ford that Pericles read as if Shakespeare had wanted to write a novel but couldn't because the English novel had not yet been invented. Mike immediately went into a delightful riff about Shakespeare's sitting by the telephone waiting for Flaubert to call and explain the novel to him.

And then read the rest of the entry, wishing I had seen the plays you'd seen.