I just wanted to note that the discussion spawned from this thread convinced me to go read the story in its entirety. Thank you!
You're most welcome! And I appreciate hearing something that justifies the effort. Oh, the equivocality of my praise for its quality of prose remains equally justified. But it's no accident, either, that people still discuss this one, decades on. The ideas it explores, and the characters and their conflicts through whom it does so, merit no less.