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For Walter Kirn, there is a kernel of truth buried in every cliché. In many of his novels (including Mission to America and She Needed Me), Kirn takes an everyman character and studies him in his natural habitat: a stereotypical situation that represents the epitome of a political or social issue that plagues modern American life. With Up in the Air, Kirn introduces the reader to Ryan Bingham, a cog in the service-industrial complex that makes up contemporary consumer culture.
Bingham’s work is in “career transition counseling,” the politically correct terminology for the business of firing people. Though dissatisfied with his job, Bingham still believes in the inherent virtues of business, particularly in its manifestation as “Airworld,” a society of like-minded individuals in transit from one business meeting to the next, brought together by their common need to be some place else. Bingham sees himself as a native of Airworld’s customs, cuisine, and currency. As a native, Bingham is in flux, and he finds himself particularly immersed in transition during the period which Up in the Air covers: During one week of of his itinerary, Bingham plans to quit his current job, finalize a publishing deal for his business philosophy tome, put out feelers for a new position, and reach one million frequent flier miles.
For all intents and purposes, Bingham feels that he is going out on top. Planning to ditch his soul-sapping job for a position at a dynamic new company, he believes reaching one million frequent flier miles will be a great symbolic achievement of his dedication to the pursuit of business. However, things start to go awry when Bingham begins noticing anomalies in his expense reports, the very reports which define his life as a businessman. With odd charges to his account appearing and an overwhelming sense that someone is watching him, Bingham slowly begins to lose faith in Airworld and—by extension—the world of business for which it stands.
Kirn’s concept is grounded in the realities of a modern world that is interested in the accumulation of things rather than quality of life. Bingham has a focus on the material that at times rivals that of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. The effect here is not so much menacing as it is pathetic: Bingham still clings to the empty talismans of consumer culture even as he sees them undermined at every step. Bingham’s desire to accumulate—perhaps best evidenced by his desire to reach one million frequent flier miles—knows neither rhyme nor reason. For example, when Bingham runs into his ex-wife’s new husband, he seriously considers buying a "burnished cube of paradise" in an expensive new real estate development from him just to show that he has the financial pull to do so:
"The concept is turnkey everything... buy a maintenance contract with the home. You're traveling five days a week? It doesn't matter. We'll whack your weeds, we've even change your lightbulbs. Furniture? Buy your own or choose a package... A seamless traditionalism, yet all the perks."
This interest in a home that represents "a seamless traditionalism" without the commitment of having to work for the facade reveals the emptiness of Bingham’s existence while simultaneously giving voice to his secret desire for normalcy. For all Bingham's postures of satisfaction with his foundation-less lifestyle, part of him wants the comforts of the traditional family home.
Kirn avoids being heavy-handed, but his critique on the emptiness of the modern business world—a world that makes its money in firing people and manufacturing nostalgia—is clearly negative. Though written in 2001, the novel’s central message that the emptiness of blind accumulation necessarily leads to crisis is obviously very timely. The film adaptation brings parallels to the current financial crisis to the forefront, but the endgame of business without conscience is glaringly apparent in Up in the Air’s pages. Bingham’s faith in the inscrutability of business principles leads to a personal crisis that culminates in a downward spiral.
(March, 2010)
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