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2.59 AVERAGE
2.59 AVERAGE
Would recommend: Maybe
Thoughts on the audio version I listened to:
1) The reader is NOT George Clooney, and that disappointed me every time I went back to it.
2) The book is nothing like the movie, so don't expect an Anna Kendrick-type character to make an appearance.
Overall, I thought this book was fine, but the ending took way too long, and I didn't find a redemptive quality about it. The writing is clever, and I enjoyed most of it, but the general tone was very flat. I doubt if having George Clooney read it would have made much difference.
Thoughts on the audio version I listened to:
1) The reader is NOT George Clooney, and that disappointed me every time I went back to it.
2) The book is nothing like the movie, so don't expect an Anna Kendrick-type character to make an appearance.
Overall, I thought this book was fine, but the ending took way too long, and I didn't find a redemptive quality about it. The writing is clever, and I enjoyed most of it, but the general tone was very flat. I doubt if having George Clooney read it would have made much difference.
I'm not at all interested in this :(
Read book before watching movie, and as usual, the book was much more involved. I was happier with the choice of the flyover city in the movie, though (Go Dubuque!) The book's ending caught me by surprise.
An odd and ok book that was turned into a better movie that retained absolutely NONE of the book. These types of discrepancies between book and movie usually bug me, but in this case, I think they made the right call.
I admit it, I picked up the book after enjoying the movie, hoping it would be a more fleshed out tale. You know how it goes, the "book was better".
The problem is, the book really doesn't have much to do with the movie. A few of the characters are more or less the same: the protagonist, a sister who would call him and a sister who was getting married. A few of the events are the same - the million miles, the protagonist's love of business travel. That's about it. Even things that carried over: Alex, the sister's wedding, Ryan's job are different. It's a completely different tale about so much more than the movie's romantic plot.
So was it better? I don't know, I know it was completely different.
The problem is, the book really doesn't have much to do with the movie. A few of the characters are more or less the same: the protagonist, a sister who would call him and a sister who was getting married. A few of the events are the same - the million miles, the protagonist's love of business travel. That's about it. Even things that carried over: Alex, the sister's wedding, Ryan's job are different. It's a completely different tale about so much more than the movie's romantic plot.
So was it better? I don't know, I know it was completely different.
After reading the book, I'm really looking forward to seeing the movie. I appreciate all of the obstacles that Ryan Bingham encountered. This was the perfect time of year for me to read this book, and I really enjoyed the look into "Airworld". Highly recommended to all.
Brilliant use of language and style. Getting into Ryan Bingham's head isn't easy, but Kirn does it admirably, and although we're getting Ryan's story from a first-person perspective, this book is filled with surprises, and I was kept engrossed until the very last page. Seriously. And yeah, I cried. And no, it's nothing like the movie.
*Spoilers ahead for the book and film!*
“To know me is to fly with me.” With an opening line like that, who needs the subsequent 300 pages of pontification?
While I read Up In the Air earlier in the year, I only watched the film this morning, and figure now is as good a time as any to write a well-informed review.
I knew there would be differences. The screenplay was adapted about eight years after the book was published and the world has obviously changed since then; new issues have taken center stage. The economic climate, for one, has plummeted and with it, employment opportunities. Ryan Bingman, protagonist and narrator of both novel and film, is a professional firer. His job is more relevant to today’s work environment, today’s reality, than it was at the beginning of the decade.
One thing I was glad stayed in the novel? Little sister drama.
One thing I was glad the film added? Natalie Keener. Not only am I, like George Clooney, on Team Anna, but Natalie represents a women from Generation Me: grappling to reconcile yearnings for traditional family values while simultaneously aspiring for corporate achievement. She also ushers in technology that further ostracizes Ryan, who embodies old-fashioned business practices.
Altered from the book is Alex, a character who is not who she seems in either version but for dissimilar reasons. I felt her deception in the film was more despicable, heartbreaking and believable. But it’s worth noting the refreshing flip of gender roles. Alex was the cheater/affair-starter/liar and Natalie snuck out the morning after without waking poor, convenient one-syllable-name Dave.
An element I liked in the novel was the trippy quirks that plagued Ryan. He heard voices calling his name from…who knows where, suspected his precious frequent-flier miles were being stolen, had unexplained memory lapses, bouts of déjà vu (or was it plagiarism?), etc., etc., etc. George Clooney’s Ryan wasn’t so disturbed, unless you count the military-grade-precision with which he packed a suitcase. And so I have to mention the separate endings.
For a moment there, I thought the film was following in the book’s exact footsteps. You know the line: “Would you like the can, sir?” Can-cer. Get it? No, Novel!Ryan doesn’t have cancer. (He experiences blackout seizures, which we learn only in the final lines of the novel, hence the lapses in recollection.) I think the film would have been labeled maudlin if it had blamed his behavior on illness at the last second. In fact, I felt the film took the more courageous route. Novel!Ryan was a broken, sick man stumbling through his sterile, impersonal existence, relying on constant motion to keep him from acknowledging the circumstances of his reality. Film!Ryan simply lived a lifestyle a-typical to most, and so his beliefs on marriage, material possessions, family, etc. were slanted. The film was his journey to discover what had been lost in his life. Put another way: the movie spent more time than the book filling up Ryan’s empty backpack. The theme of isolation, however, and the argument that we aren’t designed to be alone forever nor are we really living if we have no one to live for, came across overall.
Which was better, you ask, the novel or the film? You could go back and forth, debating witty lines against a rambling (in a good way) soundtrack, but I think anything with George Clooney as part of the deal is the natural winner to me.
Book: 3 stars
Film: 4 stars
“To know me is to fly with me.” With an opening line like that, who needs the subsequent 300 pages of pontification?
While I read Up In the Air earlier in the year, I only watched the film this morning, and figure now is as good a time as any to write a well-informed review.
I knew there would be differences. The screenplay was adapted about eight years after the book was published and the world has obviously changed since then; new issues have taken center stage. The economic climate, for one, has plummeted and with it, employment opportunities. Ryan Bingman, protagonist and narrator of both novel and film, is a professional firer. His job is more relevant to today’s work environment, today’s reality, than it was at the beginning of the decade.
One thing I was glad stayed in the novel? Little sister drama.
One thing I was glad the film added? Natalie Keener. Not only am I, like George Clooney, on Team Anna, but Natalie represents a women from Generation Me: grappling to reconcile yearnings for traditional family values while simultaneously aspiring for corporate achievement. She also ushers in technology that further ostracizes Ryan, who embodies old-fashioned business practices.
Altered from the book is Alex, a character who is not who she seems in either version but for dissimilar reasons. I felt her deception in the film was more despicable, heartbreaking and believable. But it’s worth noting the refreshing flip of gender roles. Alex was the cheater/affair-starter/liar and Natalie snuck out the morning after without waking poor, convenient one-syllable-name Dave.
An element I liked in the novel was the trippy quirks that plagued Ryan. He heard voices calling his name from…who knows where, suspected his precious frequent-flier miles were being stolen, had unexplained memory lapses, bouts of déjà vu (or was it plagiarism?), etc., etc., etc. George Clooney’s Ryan wasn’t so disturbed, unless you count the military-grade-precision with which he packed a suitcase. And so I have to mention the separate endings.
For a moment there, I thought the film was following in the book’s exact footsteps. You know the line: “Would you like the can, sir?” Can-cer. Get it? No, Novel!Ryan doesn’t have cancer. (He experiences blackout seizures, which we learn only in the final lines of the novel, hence the lapses in recollection.) I think the film would have been labeled maudlin if it had blamed his behavior on illness at the last second. In fact, I felt the film took the more courageous route. Novel!Ryan was a broken, sick man stumbling through his sterile, impersonal existence, relying on constant motion to keep him from acknowledging the circumstances of his reality. Film!Ryan simply lived a lifestyle a-typical to most, and so his beliefs on marriage, material possessions, family, etc. were slanted. The film was his journey to discover what had been lost in his life. Put another way: the movie spent more time than the book filling up Ryan’s empty backpack. The theme of isolation, however, and the argument that we aren’t designed to be alone forever nor are we really living if we have no one to live for, came across overall.
Which was better, you ask, the novel or the film? You could go back and forth, debating witty lines against a rambling (in a good way) soundtrack, but I think anything with George Clooney as part of the deal is the natural winner to me.
Book: 3 stars
Film: 4 stars
