Arid Reading.....Up In The Air.... Walter Kirn

When I first heard about this book, I thought it would be an entertaining romp through the airports and lounges I have come to know all too well myself. I was sadly mistaken, and found myself fairly pawing the pages, not because I was enjoying the story, but because I wanted to get to the END.

The Premise

Ryan Bingham is your proto-typical yuppie junior executive with too many frequent flier miles and not enough of a soul to know when to stop trying to acquire them. One would like to empathize with the protagonist at times, but it is rather difficult to find commonality with such an unabashedly shallow character. Bingham's characteristics are also not particularly well developed by the author. if he is an interesting person, Kirn has failed to show us much beyond a nerd with a laptop, a big mouth and a frequent flier card.

The main part of the story revolves around Bingham's mad dash to collect enough frequent flier miles to make his golden one million mark, before he can retire and do something, well, less productive. The artifice of this is somewhat annoying, but it is even more annoying that the secondary and tertiary characters in this book exist merely as passing figments, and not as real people. perhaps that was the idea here, that just as Bingham doesn't get to know the other characters, we won't get to know them either. The characters come and go like lounge attendants, with no development. The book becomes as tiresome as Bingham's itenerary; San Antonio-Kansas City-Denver, Denver-Reno, Reno-Ontario, Ca.-Dallas, Dallas-Seattle, Seattle-Las Vegas, Las Vegas-Omaha-Minneapolis....It makes you tired just contemplating such mobility within six days. Obviously, Kirn has exaggerated things for effect, but he might have exaggerated his characters a bit more, as they are as flat as airline cranberry juice.

There are a few modestly entertaining adventures, but Kirn does not really bring anything to life. On the whole, it is diminished by a lack of character development.


Final Analysis

Even if you are stuck on a layover in Cleveland for four hours, this book is not worth the $23.95 they ask for it. A mildly clever premise does not come to fruition. This would have been better as a short novella. If you are like me and ran out to buy this when it first came out, my condolences. Mine made a convenient doorstop for a while. perhaps the library will take it....


Up In The Air

Walter Kirn
Doubleday, 2001

303 arid pages

$23.95 USD, $35.95 CD