Books: Seduced and Abandoned

THE BEASTLY BEATITUDES OF BALTHAZAR B by J. P. Donleavy. 403 pages. Lawrence-Delacorte. $6.95.

"I live and draw a flow of gold. From a dead father's reservoir of rich es. I retreat further and further back. Behind my own lonely elegance. Where no one will ever again get to know me. And speak less and less." These are the thoughts of Balthazar B, whose picaresque life story seems to prove F. Scott Fitzgerald's statement that "the very rich are different from you and me." Actually, rich or poor, J. P. Don-leavy's characters always appear to lead lives destroyed in some way by...

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