You started a good thread,
Mithadan. I certainly agree with your reasons that
HoME is '
difficult. Some of it is archaic. It is certainly highly redundant. It is long. Many would argue that it is overly scholarly and inaccessible'. But I agree with
Kuruharan in that they are part of the reason why I read it. I'm one of the people who has bought all 13 volumes, the last being the general index.
I understand you,
Inziladun, when you say you are uneasy in knowing '
too much about how the sausage is made', although I would agree with
Pitchwife when the latter says '
For me, a poem or novel doesn't lose its appeal by studying how it does its job, I'd rather say I learn to appreciate it on an additional level'.
I agree with you,
Aiwendil, in that I also have at times picked out the parts that are '
great writing', and have ignored Christopher Tolkien's excellent commentaries.
The volumes I bought in the order of 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 10, 9, 11, 2, 6, 8 and 13.
I didn't, however, read them in that order. I read Volume 1 much later, after I began to read the others. I was particularly entranced with the verses in Volume 3, and laughed at C. S. Lewis' 'criticism' of
The Lay of Leithien.
Also, I wanted to know about the story of the Appendices in
LotR, as well as the dropped last chapter, all revealed in Volumes 12 and 9. There were also the issues in Volume 10 of the evil of Morgoth, the laws of marriage among the Elves (which had political implications), and
Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, which was very moving. There was then
The Wanderings of Húrin, in Volume 11, followed by filling in the corners.
Looking back, I first wanted to read the books to find out some of the background to what I had already read, particuarly in
The Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien had made me aware of the work his father had left unfinished, of which I had had a taste in
Unfinished Tales; so I wanted to know the unfinished pieces themselves, and the context of the life of their author from which they emerged, then the efforts by his heir to produce a coherent narrative.
I then realised, before I got to the end, and before Christopher Tolkien mentioned it, that my going through the volumes (in my own particular order) was a disorderly reading of a biography of Tolkien himself. It made me appreciate how he was able to produce (and in certain cases publish) so much work against a background of a career and raising a family.
In the last number of years, I've been writing on Tolkien, so have been using
HoME as a source of research materials, both the pieces inside themselves and CT's commentaries on them. I've also been rereading some pieces for the sheer enjoyment of doing so.