Lem in the Lexicon
Cool!

I was wondering when someone would dare a book of Lem.

As I understand it, all of the books of Lem except the Indigo book are freely available. However, the esoteric knowledge builds throughout the sequence, so much of the meaning of any particular passage of a higher book will be opaque to anyone who hasn't worked through the sequence. However, there are probably some passages even in the higher books that are relatively comprehensible to readers who have not reached that point in the sequence (although the full meaning will still be hidden).

In my imagining, none of the Books of Lem have much of a coherent structure (or at least, an obviously coherent structure). Each book is divided up into many chapters of varying length, with the style of the text and the apparent subject matter often varying significantly from chapter to chapter. However, I imagine the degree to which this is true varies from book to book, and some of the books may actually be relatively coherent in structure (for instance, I imagine that the Black Book is relatively coherent in structure, since it was originally proposed as the basic magical text of the order).

Unless your scholar is very serious about the books of Lem, the upper books would definitely be very hard going, but it is conceivable that she would have read them. She definitely would at least be able to consult them in concert with going off of her house's party line. Surely, someone at Annalum has read all of the books of Lem.

In my imagining, a large part of the books are virtually incomprehensible to even a Lemmite. I imagine much Lemmite writings as being attempts to explicate the particularly difficult passages, and I imagine Lemmites spending seasons upon seasons carefully studying each text. When I get home, I'll look again at Sonata's season by season biography, and see how many seasons it was that I thought she spent per book before progressing to the next one. I'm not sure how much it really tells you, but it might be a useful tidbit. Of course, she also returns occaisionally to the earlier ones as she progresses, and the real mark of maturity among Lemmites comes when you finally finish the blue book, and begin to reread from the beginning in light of your greater understanding. True mastery only comes to those who have been permitted to read the Indigo Book, and have reread through the end of the blue book with the eyes of someone who has completed the Indigo Book - and absolute mastery is only possible for the holder of the Indigo Book, who can actually study the final text at lesiure, rather than merely spending a season or two dipping their toes into its shallows.

Hope that is useful.

dibs 2c
Very useful. I think I'll write the earlier ones from her perspective. It would seem like more useful/interesting commentary would come for the higher books from someone who'd been able to read them with understanding.