Flynn's World: A Novel [Hardcover]

McDonald went on to write three subsequent novels starring the intrepid Flynn, his world expanded to include his musical family, his assistant and friend Cocky, who is partially paralyzed and his incompetent partner "Grover". Each of these novels is funny, thoughtful and sharp. It didn't take long to realize, however, that the Flynn novels were forums for McDonald to pontificate, to offer his own opinions on the state of the world. They were no less enjoyable for this.

Now, many years after the last Flynn novel, "Flynn's In", McDonald has produced "Flynn's World", an oration on the evils of television, isolation and ignorance. Flynn ponders the identity of the person or persons who nailed his daughter's classmate's ear to a tree and of the person or persons who send threatening notes to helpless old Harvard professors. In typical style, Flynn employs his sons to spy on the school chum and putters around the Harvard campus, asking impertinent questions and making leaps of deductive logic that would make Sherlock Holmes tap his foot in annoyance.

Far from being one of Flynn's standard, entertaining romps, this fourth outing is a ponderous, pedantic drudge. In the intervening years while Gregory McDonald was off creating the dull "Skylar" and the flavorless "Son of Fletch" books (not to mention the awful works of "literature" he foisted on an unsuspecting public), he seems to have forgotten how to write for someone truly clever, not merely bombastic. Flynn now seems older, world-weary. This might be acceptable if the character had aged a dozen years in the interim, but this book takes place only a few weeks after the first one, "Flynn".

The writing is not as crisp as a fan might expect, the mysteries are not solvable by any means outside the brain of Flynn himself, and, once solved, are not satisfying. They are incredible and vaguely unsettling. And they ripple with meaning, not with a wink but with a bonk upon the head.

I am disappointed in this book, as I waited many months for its release, only to find that it is substandard McDonald, when I had expected a triumphant return. Why else wait so long before releasing a book with a hero so long dormant, if not to dazzle? Sadly, I remain undazzled.

Along with hapless sidekick Grover (call me Richard), Flynn learns that Harvard has gone downhill, descending into internal dissension and value-free studies. The aging professor's old-fashioned beliefs that certain ideas are better, that certain (well educated) people make better leaders, and that professors have a mission to teach are considered elitist and outdated. Especially by one assistant professor who openly mocks the aging don while letting his own children grow up in a value free and hazardous environment. Flynn's large family, by contrast, is composed of well behaved and nearly perfect children.

Gregory Mcdonald's writing frequently left me laughing out loud. Flynn's wry comments and sly digs are appealing and certainly anyone would like to have Flynn's perfect family rather than the horrible life of the assistant professor (whose wife, unsurprisingly, is a child psychologist). Still, I think Mcdonald carried his message farther than the story allowed. Age-tested concepts and ideas may be fine, but then again, infant sacrifice, female mutilation, and witch-burning are age-tested ideas that survived for generations. Age and survival cannot be the test of an idea. Since Flynn is naturally perfect, he could certainly be our Platonic philosopher-king but, unfortunately, Flynn is fiction.

Mcdonald tried to tone down his message a little by introducing a neo-nazi cop--apparently intent on showing that Flynn (and Mcdonald) are not the elitist white males that the young professor would make them. Perhaps Flynn's contempt for 'Grover' is also intended to demonstrate a general contempt for the less educated, regardless of race. I found, however, that Flynn's treatment of his assistant was cruel and undeserved as Grover had his eyes opened by spending time with the professor and developing a real humanity--something that Flynn doesn't seem to share.

It's hard not to enjoy a Gregory Mcdonald book. His writing is very strong and compelling. His wit sparkles. It's hard to put FLYNN'S WORLD down--I read it in a single sitting despite the lateness of the hour. But it left an uncomfortable aftertaste.