http://www.brothers-brick.com/2009/10/09/a-deeper-look-at-the-lego-building-experience/ And one Brick to rule them all... Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:35:28 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://www.brothers-brick.com/2009/10/09/a-deeper-look-at-the-lego-building-experience/comment-page-1/#comment-80923 Aethon Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:14:28 +0000 http://www.brothers-brick.com/?p=11351#comment-80923 Having read both Chabon and Cook's essays, I would suggest that Cook presents a serious misreading of Chabon's work. In tracing the changed aesthetic in LEGO creations from his own childhood to that of his children, Chabon draws attention to the consequent shift from the modernist neutrality of the product's early years towards a new aesthetic - that of "the pastiche that destroys its sources at the same time that it makes use of and reinvents them"(p.57). Rather than characterizing this creative stage, as Cook suggests, as a 'transgressive rejection' of the structure or order imposed by an instruction manual, Chabon celebrates the expansion of LEGO to include the reproduction of more complex and variegated forms, writing that these new materials provide opportunity to "make something new, something no one has ever seen or imagined before."(p.57) Cook's essay unfortunately overlooks this conclusion, focusing instead on earlier observations made by Chabon in his passage towards a characteristic reversal and reflexive moment of narrative anagnorisis. Like Cook, I would encourage readers to begin with Chabon's essay itself, hopefully with opinions unbiased by the incomplete reading outlined in Cook's essay. Having read both Chabon and Cook’s essays, I would suggest that Cook presents a serious misreading of Chabon’s work. In tracing the changed aesthetic in LEGO creations from his own childhood to that of his children, Chabon draws attention to the consequent shift from the modernist neutrality of the product’s early years towards a new aesthetic – that of “the pastiche that destroys its sources at the same time that it makes use of and reinvents them”(p.57). Rather than characterizing this creative stage, as Cook suggests, as a ‘transgressive rejection’ of the structure or order imposed by an instruction manual, Chabon celebrates the expansion of LEGO to include the reproduction of more complex and variegated forms, writing that these new materials provide opportunity to “make something new, something no one has ever seen or imagined before.”(p.57) Cook’s essay unfortunately overlooks this conclusion, focusing instead on earlier observations made by Chabon in his passage towards a characteristic reversal and reflexive moment of narrative anagnorisis. Like Cook, I would encourage readers to begin with Chabon’s essay itself, hopefully with opinions unbiased by the incomplete reading outlined in Cook’s essay.

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