What a beautiful and melancholy novel of ideas. Of the many aspects that struck me one scene has stayed persistently since finishing. In it, a Hanish character named Ketho decides to land on Anarres with Shevek. Surprised, Shevek asks him why, there will be so many hardships he will have to endure. Ketho responds that though his race is very old (100 millennia) and has tried every political system one could think of, he has never seen Anarchy for himself, and that made its own relevance. More than flippant curiosity, his position made clear the value of individual experiences in the moment, yet an interdependence of ideas. History is merely a record, reality can only truly exist in the web of the present tense and it is always important. I don't know why that stuck with me but I found it very meaningful.