The Great Tales as introduction

[Inziladun]

Hmm. I'm trying to recall how I felt about The Silmarillion at first.

I had read both TH and LOTR by the time I was ten or so, but I didn't read the Silm until a few years later.
I do remember feeling a bit overwhelmed by the immense number of names and places, but I was utterly entranced with the map of Beleriand, showing the unbroken Ered Luin, with a huge mass of land to the west.

Though the names were daunting, as you touch on, Huey, I fell in love with the language used; it enhanced and embellished the stories in a tremendous way, and thus drew me in. I believe that the same tales, written with different style, would not have held my interest so.

Could the archaically written Silmarillion keep the interest of those who regularly write nothing longer than "lolz", "BRB", and "TTYL"?

I do think CoH could work well as a stand-alone story, but I don't know if that would induce Silm immersion.