Customer Reviews

Up in the Air

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(27)

 

 

The neutral and even negative reviews on Amazon of this masterly novel are beyond comprehension. As someone who dwelt in cubicle Hades for a quarter of a century, and who now, at retirement, am still assessing the mental damage done to me, it is a pleasure to read the mother of all satires concerning team building, goals and objectives, win-win situations, addressing the problem and not the person, core competencies, consumer satisfaction and all the rest of the mind-rotting bilge that one had to pretend to take seriously in order to pick up one's pay. Kirn is laugh aloud funny on these travesties and more, including air travel, hotels, restaurants, Vegas, and even family values. The protagonist, Ryan, buys into huge amounts of new age business drivel, but a woman he once fired helps him ascend into the light. He is redeemed, in the end, only because his heart was never in the nonsense he does for a living, and because he is truly a nice guy, as the woman recognizes. He's also a gentleman, as is Kirn, who paints only men negatively in his book. Women, when they act out, are only trying to keep up or get even. Highly recommended.

After reading Kirn's Lost in the Meritocracy, I was excited to pick up Up in the Air. Forget the hype about the movie and clooney's acting; the book stands on its own, as does its protagonist Ryan Bingham. What makes this novel so inexplicably intriguing is its realistic portrayal of a life without a home, content in chain hotels, chain steak houses, chain airport restaurants and so on. As Bingham says, the aspects of travel we cringe at make him feel at home.

Kirn's philosophical voice is spoken through the mind of his protagonist; and Bingham, as a premise, is one interesting man. In his quest to reach one million frequent flier miles, and fulfill his job of motivational speaking and career transition counseling, he builds relationships with everyone in Air World he sees. That disconnect between what Bingham says and what Bingham thinks provides conflict and humor that other narration styles lose out on.

If you're looking for an action-backed book, look elsewhere. This novel is for those who find people more interesting than anything. Ominous conflicts, hilarious social interactions, a real portrayal of a fictitious character, all add up to a page-turning read of Up in the Air (Movie Tie-in Edition)

As a fan of Walter Kirn's extensive contributive work to every fantastic periodical you can think of and of his books including his intriguing memoir "Lost in the Meritocracy", I was thrilled to learn I had somehow missed this work released at the unfortunate same time as the sept.11th attacks. What a fortunate turn for Jason Reitman to endure in his facination with Kirn's character of Ryan Bingham by selecting it to be developed to film. It was by my learning of the film's imminent release that I ordered and read it then. The central character is a self banished society outsider who imagines himself to float above the common man's labrynth of society systems and inter-personal ties by removing himself from the very ground that they walk on. By relinquishing all responsibilities as soon as they come upon him, he is a shiny snake with freshly shed skin ready to dazzle at every moment. Even when he lands to do business or attend to the tasks of getting laid or take care of family matters, the reader is aware he is not really there, with his mind and almost his body in the forward moving ether of "whats next and when do we leave for it?" After I became acclimated to the ghost state of this unattainable man, chasing his unattainable goal (a million frequent flyer miles) I then turned my attention to anything that would allow me to redeem him. And that's what hooked me. Being there to love and attend to his sister through her own struggles with commitment and her own self banishment by anorexia and Ryan's tender understanding of her were poignant. His thoughtfulness, appropriate consideration and even caring in the midst of matter of fact pursuit of women was almost attractive, but his insecurities and revealed self-awarenesses are what makes this "big ego, low self esteem" character endearing. I have also seen the movie in early release and it is fantastic to see Kirn's valuable and entertaining tale masterfully shown through a fresh director's eyes with actors, cinematography, music and an adapted screenplay with altered focuses but so much of the generative novel's greatness. However Kirn does this with only words black and white on paper, and that's why I love this author and this book.

Christopher Buckley in the New York Times Book Review called Ryan Bingham, the narrator of 'Up in the Air', "a tragicomic fusion out of Martin Amis, Nicholson Baker and Jay McInerney on a good day". Uhhh, maybe, in as much as Bingham is a 35 year old postmodern man who's mildly out of his mind. But 'Up in the Air' is nowhere near as funny or as trenchant as the best work of that trio. In fact, Ryan Bingham reminded me most of the pre-bareknuckle Ed Norton character in 'Fight Club' (sorry, never read the book), with his talk of single-serving friends, his attachmentless existence and his fundamental dullness. The thing is, almost any single scene from that movie is funnier, edgier and more evocative than Kirn's novel.

This book really didn't work for me as satire and it certainly didn't do a very convincing job of describing a frequent flyer's relationship to the skies... there's really no attention to the details of what it's like to fly, and as a 200,000+ mile flyer myself, I can say that I pay a lot more attention to the equipment, history, business, sights and sounds of flying than Bingham seems to (maybe that's just me) and, unlike in Bingham's world, I know you can't fly to little cities all over the West without going through a hub airport at least once.

In short, Kirn's Airworld is an arid dystopian fantasyland -- but one that didn't say much to me about either flying or life as a young man in the American West.

I am going to skip over all the corporate and firing aspects of this work. Ultimately, I think this work is more about a continuation of a trend which began in the last century, of the increasing isolation and alienation man was encouraged to embrace as we changed our mode of work to where it was far apart from the rest of our lives. This work takes it a step further and examines a man who has no life apart from his work place. He even gives seminars in how to unburden yourself by repacking the luggage in your life. There is not one soft, fuzzy or emotional thing in his life. His apartment is as personal as a hotel room and he likes it that way. During the course of the work though, he begins to let a few things into his life. He starts to feel the awakenings of being a real human being. I've also seen the movie upon which this is based and it is excellent. George Clooney is even better than he was in "Michael Clayton."

Kirn's book is darker and stranger than the movie--but just as emotionally satisfying. Airworld is a a compelling, unique place, both odd and familiar to anyone who has spent serious time criss-crossing the country at 30,000 feet. The perennial estrangement at the heart of the novel is disquieting but feels deep and true. This is more than a worthwhile read.

It's been awhile since I ripped through a book, but as I finished "Up in the Air" I was sad to see it go. Kirn is a criminally sly writer who writes fun deep books -- no small feat in this age of arch irony drenched prose stylist. "Up in the Air" is his best yet and accomplishes more in its 300 pages than the current crop of door stopping "Big Important Novels" do in twice that.

Up in the Air is perhaps the best written awful book I've ever read. Walter Kirn assembles words well, and he's an astute observer of some aspects of frequent traveling. But the story never reaches a comfortable cruising altitude. There's nothing likeable about Ryan Bingham, his seatmates, the woman he occasionally sleeps with, or the family he grew up with. The several weak plots badly woven throughout the book made me feel like I was sitting on a plane, overhearing parts of several conversations, none of which I cared about. As it droned on like the engine of a 767, it was clear the book had no flight plan.

A few pages of this sad, cynical tale might have made a good essay; maybe a few pages more could have been spun into a readable short story. But a novel it's not. And the tired little book certainly isn't worthy of all the publicity it's receiving.

This is one of those rare times when I am grateful tht I saw the movie before reading the book. Had I read the book first, I probably would not have gone to see the movie. Having seen the movie first, I HAD to read the book!

As someone who was on the road for 40 weeks out of the year for more than five years, I could identify with the Ryan Bingham character, the choices he makes, the way he lives his life, where he gets his mail, his rental cars, the whole enchilada. I loved the movie. Thus, I had to read the novel.

This is one of those times when I am grateful that it was available at my local library and that I didn't have to buy the book to read it. While I enjoyed the novel, I couldn't help but marvel that the screenwriters were able to draw that film from this book.

Having said all of that, the end of the book (no spoilers!) caught me off guard, and I think could have been totally missed had I not been paying attention. I re-read those last couple of pages several times while paging back through the book. That explained so much, and actually salvaged the book so that I could give it three stars. I'm grateful that I read through to the end . . . and also grateful that I didn't just read the last few pages to see how it ends --- as I not only would have not gotten the impact of the ending, I would have MISSED the ending. It was very subtle, but explained so much.

I am still enjoying the impact of the film . . . but this is a book review, not a movie review so I'll leave it at that.

This is one of those rare instances when the movie adaptation is MUCH better than the book. If I hadn't seen the movie, I might have liked the book, some what. There is little similarity between the book story line and the movie story line. I was hoping to find out more about the movie character from the book and instead met an entirely different character.