This Plane Is Definitely Crashing

CRICHTON!

This is a novel that has haunted me since my childhood. I remember my dad reading it when I was young. And at the time, I was totally obsessed with Michael Crichton. Sphere. Andromeda Strain. The Terminal Man! Lost World!!! So, naturally, in my exuberant youth, I picked up Airframe.

But, unfortunately for all parties involved, Airframe terrified the shit out of me. It's about an airplane crash. I'm terrified of airplanes crashing. And my small mind just couldn't handle it. The mangled bodies. The destruction of towering hunks of metal and jet fuel. The death. The carnage. I made it about a fourth of the way through the story. And then came the nervous jitters, the uncontrollable diarrhea. You know what I'm talking about. So, in a fit of panicked rage, I threw down the novel, never to return to its demon pages.

Until now, that is. I was in the library not so long ago, meandering aimlessly through the fiction section. And, lo and behold, what do I see staring back at me in the C section (pun...intended?)? Airframe. By Michael Crichton. So, what the heck, I thought. I'm older now. I've semi-conquered my fears of air travel. Why not? And I checked it out.

Well, let me tell you a few things. Airframe is NOT about a plane crash. It's about an "almost" plane crash. There are three deaths. There is no destruction of metal, no exploding jet fuel. It's a very technical book, not terribly exciting, filled with well-researched, dry airplane jargon, written in a fairly mediocre manner. Bland characters. Two hundred pages too long.

I don't know what I was thinking. Why was my young imagination so afraid of this book? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Could that be? Maybe I only thought I threw it down in fear, when in actuality, I was just bored. It seems plausible now. I don't know. 

But I finished it. Years and years later, yes, but I finished it. And now it's done. Consumed. I will say that the last eighty pages are pretty riveting, and when all is said and done, it was a sort of interesting, sort of compelling story. But, man, I just feel a little disappointed. A little empty inside. I wanted my world to be rocked. And it didn't happen. I was totally prepared to overcome a major childhood fear. But, I have to say, I feel exactly the same now as I did before.

Because really, Jesse, what's changed?