i ran games for quite a few absolute beginners (9 so far), i don't even show them the books until they ask.
had no problem playing, we now have a few people at lv 5, and none of them has even read the phb.
two newer players are now lv 3, and has just recently asked for source materials that they could read and plan for future levels
sure, playing like this has its own problems, as the players will only be picking spells or feats that sounds cool to them, and they won't really care if that ability is actually good or not, but powerlevel is something a dm should be able to fix, simply by increasing player HP (i double their lv1 hp), and not throw encounters that would challenge their level, but rather their powerlevel (which should be done anyways, if you challenge their level but they are optimized, the encounter just wouldn't put more than a scratch on the players)
i don't really think there are too many rules involved if i can explain most of it in 20 minutes, there are plenty of boardgames that simply can't be played after only 20 min of rule explanation