Tarthang--I admit I've read very, very little of HoME, but I'm beginning to work on parts of it, and I must say that the Silm's existence has its virtues. It, unlike HoME, was put together to be read. It's able to present the events all together in a roughly story-like fashion. If you're reading for the story itself, having this makes a lot of sense. It's much more difficult to get a sense of ME chronological progression and the connections between things from the myriad drafts (particularly as some parts of the history seem to have interested the author more than others). Also (and related), having read it is making it easier for me to follow the texts that weren't ready to be read, and at least in the beginning here, exactly because it provided this map and story-like vision.
Does this make any sense?
--Belin Ibaimendi
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"I hate dignity," cried Scraps, kicking a pebble high in the air and then trying to catch it as it fell. "Half the fools and all the wise folks are dignified, and I'm neither the one nor the other." --L. Frank Baum
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