Joseph Conrad’s book, Heart of Darkness, is heavy, provocative, controversial, and rife with symbolism. Legos are whimsical, colorful, playful, and hurt like hell when you step on them. The two don’t exactly go together … until now.
Our Book of the Week author, Kevin McMillin, has illustrated Heart of Darkness using Legos. And thanks to U.S. copyright laws and the concept of public domain, this version is not only entertaining; it’s also totally legal to use the text. Don’t believe me? Here’s what Mark Twain had to say about it.
Kevin, we have so many questions. Why Heart of Darkness? How long did it take you? Do you go to BrickFest? What’s your day job and do they know about your storytelling-through-Lego talents? Congratulations, you and your creative concept seriously earned Book of the Week.
Gone With the Wind? Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas? The Da Vinci Code? Pet Sematary? Which literary masterpiece do you want to see depicted in Legos?
2 Comments
Hey fellow Blurbers!
I was floored and humbled to see my book chosen as Book of the Week. Here’s a little info on the back story of the project:
I am a senior in high school and a student in an Advanced Placement English Literature course. For our end-of-the-year project, we have to read a novel or play and creatively retell the story or message using a medium of our choosing. I was overjoyed at the ease with which I could publish a book with Blurb’s tools, and the price and printing quality were also extremely attractive. I read the book for the first time several weeks ago, and I thought that LEGO bricks were the perfect medium–they were cheap and easy to manipulate. I took about 100 shots with a Canon Powershot A550 on May 10, 11, 12, and 13, editing the book as I took the shots. I used the GIMP, a free image-editor, to add background images of the Congo to many of the images. I’ll be giving my reading of Heart of Darkness for my class next week, :)
Joseph Conrad is my favorite author, his use of language coupled with his quest to mine the human condition is gripping. Some have criticized him for being prejudice and Eurocentric. On the contrary, Conrad was interested in showing just how flimsy our cultural identities are and how conflict inevitably arises when individuals are cast out of the comfort zones in which this identity has sheltered them. My reading of Conrad’s work, reveals this over and over again. My favorite story of all time is “Youth”. The tone of this is different than Heart of Darkness but, still, the darkness is there. Only, as a youth the darkness is perceived as wonder until age and experience proves otherwise.
On another note, as the illustrator of the backgrounds you used in your Bllurb book, I was pleased to see them in the context of Conrad. Well done.
Samuel