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.

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall with a tape recorder to hear that. Did you see the Guthrie production of Pericles at the Lab lo these many years ago?