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Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses
Twenty years as an outsider scouring the underbelly of American culture has made Howard Hampton a uniquely hardnosed guide to the heart of pop darkness. Bridging the fatalistic, intensely charged space between Apocalypse Now Redux and Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” his writing breaks down barriers of ignorance and arrogance that have segregated art forms from each other and often from the world at large. In the freewheeling spirit of Pauline Kael, Lester Bangs, and Manny Farber, Hampton calls up the extremist, underground tendencies and archaic forces simmering beneath the surface of popular forms. Ranging from the kinetic poetry of Hong Kong cinema and the neo–New Wave energy of Irma Vep to the punk heroines of Sleater-Kinney and Ghost World , Born in Flames plays odd couples off one pitting Natural Born Killers against Forrest Gump , contrasting Jean-Luc Godard with Steven Spielberg, defending David Lynch against aesthetic ideologues, invoking The Curse of the Mekons against Fredric Jameson’s Postmodernism, and introducing D. H. Lawrence to Buffy the Vampire Slayer . “We are born in flames,” sang the incandescent Lora Logic, and here those flames are a source of illumination as well as destruction, warmth as well as consumption. From the scorched-earth works of action-movie provocateurs Seijun Suzuki and Sam Peckinpah to the cargo cult soundscapes of Pere Ubu and the Czech dissidents Plastic People of the Universe, Born in Flames is a headlong plunge into the passions and disruptive power of art.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 17, 2008
A little self-consciously edgy. Meh.
April 4, 2011
STRANGE DAYS
At first, Howard Hampton's collection of reviews and art criticism comes across like a Deepwater Horizon of prose, toxic and unstoppable billows from below... or like the bellows of a tattooed Emperor wearing nothing but ink, paragraph-long sentences read straight from a foreshortened prick as he struts brazenly through the intersection of Thunder Road and Desolation Row, the place where Gotham Road meets the Piano Vortex—or something to that effect, anyway. You get the idea, I hope. Such dense curtains of words and unlikely combinations of proper nouns seem almost designed to obscure sense, each obliquely allusive comparison to some forgotten slab of garage-sale vinyl or Betamax-only Hong Kong actioner less accessible than the last, and there are times when Hampton's train of thought veers off into virtual tracklessness. The only connection I could detect among the parts of "Flattering the Audience" (p.342) about the films "American Splendor" and "American Beauty" and, later, about "About Schmidt" was in the alliteration of their titles.
But even at the discouraging beginning, I couldn't shake the feeling that there really was some there there after all—and I remained heartened by the hints of eclectic fascination in Hampton's subtitle, "Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses." So I kept reading... and eventually cohesion emerged, a pointillistic coalescence from fractal chaos. Hampton's Markov-chain metaphors began to hover on the edge of comprehensibility, and I started finding that in those rare cases where I'd actually seen, listened to, or experienced the art he was talking about... I tended to agree with his pyrotechnic, wordplayful opinions.
That isn't the only basis upon which to read a critic, of course. Sometimes reading a well-expressed, forceful review with which you disagree is a more effective (and fun!) way to make your own decisions about a work of art. But each point of agreement glimmering through the fog did reinforce anew my inklings that Hampton was actually saying something meaningful, not just tossing around years-old word salad. In "Lynch Mob" (p.336), for example, his spirited defense of David Lynch's atypical foray into wholesomeness "The Straight Story" resonated strongly with me. And the more I read Hampton's prose, the more sense it seemed to make... and the more I started wanting to write something like it. Which, I admit, may not be a good thing.
It was not really until "Such Sweet Thunder," Hampton's eloquent, heartfelt eulogy for fellow critic Pauline Kael, though, that I truly decided I liked this book after all. If you read only one piece in this collection, read that one. Like the late, better-known rock critic Lester Bangs, Hampton's writing this way because he can (because he has to?), and because he cares.
I don't think many readers will have the perseverance to go prospecting through these rivers of dense prose with their short-attention pans ("Such Sweet Thunder" begins on p.283), but those who do will find, in the end, more gold than iron pyrite.
At first, Howard Hampton's collection of reviews and art criticism comes across like a Deepwater Horizon of prose, toxic and unstoppable billows from below... or like the bellows of a tattooed Emperor wearing nothing but ink, paragraph-long sentences read straight from a foreshortened prick as he struts brazenly through the intersection of Thunder Road and Desolation Row, the place where Gotham Road meets the Piano Vortex—or something to that effect, anyway. You get the idea, I hope. Such dense curtains of words and unlikely combinations of proper nouns seem almost designed to obscure sense, each obliquely allusive comparison to some forgotten slab of garage-sale vinyl or Betamax-only Hong Kong actioner less accessible than the last, and there are times when Hampton's train of thought veers off into virtual tracklessness. The only connection I could detect among the parts of "Flattering the Audience" (p.342) about the films "American Splendor" and "American Beauty" and, later, about "About Schmidt" was in the alliteration of their titles.
But even at the discouraging beginning, I couldn't shake the feeling that there really was some there there after all—and I remained heartened by the hints of eclectic fascination in Hampton's subtitle, "Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses." So I kept reading... and eventually cohesion emerged, a pointillistic coalescence from fractal chaos. Hampton's Markov-chain metaphors began to hover on the edge of comprehensibility, and I started finding that in those rare cases where I'd actually seen, listened to, or experienced the art he was talking about... I tended to agree with his pyrotechnic, wordplayful opinions.
That isn't the only basis upon which to read a critic, of course. Sometimes reading a well-expressed, forceful review with which you disagree is a more effective (and fun!) way to make your own decisions about a work of art. But each point of agreement glimmering through the fog did reinforce anew my inklings that Hampton was actually saying something meaningful, not just tossing around years-old word salad. In "Lynch Mob" (p.336), for example, his spirited defense of David Lynch's atypical foray into wholesomeness "The Straight Story" resonated strongly with me. And the more I read Hampton's prose, the more sense it seemed to make... and the more I started wanting to write something like it. Which, I admit, may not be a good thing.
It was not really until "Such Sweet Thunder," Hampton's eloquent, heartfelt eulogy for fellow critic Pauline Kael, though, that I truly decided I liked this book after all. If you read only one piece in this collection, read that one. Like the late, better-known rock critic Lester Bangs, Hampton's writing this way because he can (because he has to?), and because he cares.
I don't think many readers will have the perseverance to go prospecting through these rivers of dense prose with their short-attention pans ("Such Sweet Thunder" begins on p.283), but those who do will find, in the end, more gold than iron pyrite.
November 1, 2016
Howard Hampton is a freak of linguistic nature! He cobbles together sentences like superglued chunks of raw whoa. The sentences are marbled with brilliance and spiced with a substance so rate that it might be an acquired taste of all but Hampton.
The subject matter is primarily iconic people who acquired their fifteen minutes of fame in the 80's and 90's. Hampton makes connections that are both twisty and fascinating. If you like the edges of society, especially along the left bank (punk, disgruntled artists, disposed youth, etc), then this bit of nostalgiał will be irresistible k
The subject matter is primarily iconic people who acquired their fifteen minutes of fame in the 80's and 90's. Hampton makes connections that are both twisty and fascinating. If you like the edges of society, especially along the left bank (punk, disgruntled artists, disposed youth, etc), then this bit of nostalgiał will be irresistible k
April 18, 2016
Pretty cool collection of essays about pop culture ranging from early Pere Ubu records to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Pynchon novels. Hampton is obviously well-read (watched, listened, etc) and he is clever in his use of language. Could be seen as the West Coast version of Luc Sante (another witty essayist).
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews