Lang or Artin?

Although I still have decades of stuff to cover before I can really compare Lang and Artin I do have an opinion. Those who studied either or both of them seem to agree on one thing: neither of the books should be used as a text for a course, let alone for self-study: they are works of reference. Now that's strange because at least Artin's book was written from many years of course notes. I think the books should be studied but with many companion books to help you get through. Artin wrote in the preface: "...Sometimes the exercise of deferring material showed that it could be deferred forever - that it was not essential. This happened with dual spaces and multilinear algebra. ..." I tried to start reading Representation theory, by Fulton and Harris with nothing more than an undergraduate abstract algebra introduction as preparation. I couldn't finish the book because it was packed with topics from multilinear algebra. - I have been warned, warned and warned to take it easy but I go for Lang, why not? Mathematics grew into my fascination and passion. What else can I do?