Why is it so difficult?

[Lalwendë]

I think a lot of the problems people have with the Sil is that Tolkien wrote it in the style of genuine Mythology. Pick up a copy of the Mabinogion and you will experience the same style, slightly distant and 'high', a sense that the text was not written in the same century which produced The Hobbit. This is a huge shock following close on the heels of one of the greatest and most readable narratives of all time, LotR.

But once you get over the shock, there are some beautiful and terrifying stories to be found inside. This is Tolkien's Dark Work, and has some amazing ideas within. Spider beings which devour Light. Incest. Vampires. Werewolves. Revenge. Some of the stories bring us things which we might not have expected to find in Tolkien, such as Byronic figures; there's one in Eol, who has always appealed to me as a dark male figure, living alone in the woods, enchanting a beautiful woman (bit like Mr Rochester at the end of Jane Eyre, possibly?). Brrr.

So yes, if struggling, approach it in another way. Begin at the end. Or with the tale that most interests you.