I was interested in watching Up In The Air because I thought it would be a film about the culture of flying; and although I don’t fly as often since I don’t have to fly for work, it’s still an interesting topic for me. I skipped watching the movie (on a flight no less) but read the book recently.

This was a weird book, and doesn’t read like an award winning movie. I felt like the novel spent most of its time in a monologue by the main character, who is narcissistic and paranoid. There are a lot of holes in the timeline of the plot, but I’m honestly not sure whether it’s on purpose or not. I think the novel is an excellent choice to read for English class because there are a lot of potential themes and metaphors; for example, is flying a metaphor for a refined persona that one presents professionally?

Well who knows. Afterwards I read about the film adaptation and it is quite Hollywood-ized. Mental illness seemed to play a huge part of the book, but it didn’t sound like it was there in the movie.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: reading