The mad ballet dancer in the attic

The Times talks about Cornelia Parker's newest project, called Chomskian Abstract. Despite the similarity in the names, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to her Brontëan Abstracts. This one is actually a film.

It is called Chomskian Abstract, and it consists, quite simply, of footage of Chomsky talking about current affairs. His jersey is scruffy. His hair is grey. His delivery is calm. His words are measured and thoughtful and his opinions are clear and completely uncompromising.
Parker wanted to create a portrait of Chomsky. She has certainly experimented with contemporary alternatives to traditional portraiture in the past. In a 1995 collaboration with Tilda Swinton, for instance, she displayed the sleeping actress in a glass case and, in a project at the Brontë Parsonage museum, she tried to create a psychological portrait of Jane Eyre's author by photographing all the tiny alterations that the writer made to her manuscript. She also filmed an interview with a 90-year-old woman who claimed to be Branwell Brontë's great-grandchild. “I needed to capture her story before she died,” Parker says. (Rachel Campbell Johnston)

This half of BrontëBlog is particularly enthusiastic when it comes to the Brontëan Abstracts and other older projects by Cornelia Parker. This new one does sound intriguing.

The Scotsman has one of those articles on romantic literature so typical at this time of the year... with a twist. This one is mainly focused on Scottish literature, landscapes, influences and - uh - men.

[Romance writer Paula] Quinn’s landscape theme is echoed by Edwards who points out that from Byron to the Brontës there is a strong literary tradition of linking wild men with wild landscapes. (Fiona MacGregor)

Then again and perhaps more to the point, the Brontës were largely influenced by Walter Scott, too.

The Village Voice reviews the ballet Rococo Variations, now on stange in New York. In case you were wondering a ballet piece can also be influenced by the Brontës.

The woman who appears bearing a candle and pattering numbly around on pointe, with the breeze blowing her filmy white nightgown is a docile version of the madwoman in the attic (see Jane Eyre). (Deborah Jowitt)

Some interesting blogs: Have Your Cake and Eat It picks the 'the crème de la crème' of Victorian novels. Villette makes it onto the list just after Charlotte's admired Thackeray's masterpiece. Paul Kerensa wonders about Helen Burns's name. La vie en rose posts her favourite stills and scenes from Jane Eyre 2006. And lastly, La policia grammatica writes about the similarities between Jane Eyre and The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

One thing that really got me was the parallel of the narrator of this story and Bertha Mason of Bronte's Jane Eyre. Both of them are kept in the attic, and both of them are crazy. However, the similarties stop here. The narrator, I believe, is going insane because of her yellow wallpapered room, whereas Bertha Mason is truly insane and a menace--proved by her setting fire to Thornfield. Maybe people will argue, though, that the narrator is also destructive--basing their argument on page 649, where the narrator begins to destroy the wallpaper, believing that she is seeing people running around on it.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Dance, Jane Eyre, Villette