Space, time, and plane travel in Walter Kirn’s novel Up in the Air

Abstract

This article applies Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the literary chronotope to an analysis of the depiction of corporate air travel in Walter Kirn’s novel Up in the Air (2001). The analysis shows how the novel positions itself in relation to the genre of road narratives, at the same time transforming it by exchanging the car and the road for airplanes and airports. It further examines how the “airworld” chronotope is characterized by a disjunction between space and time. This contributes to a critique of commercialization and reification of space and time in contemporary American society, and also serves to question ideals traditionally associated with the American road genre.