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 money.
Sebastian Dangerfield, the lusting, heroic anti-hero of Don-leavy's comic first novel, The Ginger Man, was torn between fumbling seductions and desperate attempts to make ends meet. Balthazar B gropes endlessly for an enduring love, denied him at least partly because of his riches. He is born of wealthy French parents, and the circumstances connected with Balthazar's upbringing make him into a shy, porcelain personality curiously inept at coming to terms with life.
His mother neglects him for her lovers, so he attaches himself emotionally to a nanny and an eccentric uncle. The uncle, famous as an explorer and balloonist, fills little Balthazar's head with ideas that later crop up inappropriately in moments of crisis. For example, Balthazar is found drunkenly lost in a garden and is arrested for rape. He recalls Uncle's advice: "About the routes to follow through life. Lighthearted on the boulevard, gay in the cafe, a good shot at the shoot. A flower delivered each morning to the door for the buttonhole. Put a smile on the face. Keep the collar worn loose at the throat. Move the bowel in the morning like the roar of a lion. Hum a lullaby while you pee. If you want to wear the toupee, which I do not suggest, always carry two. One for the white wine and one for the red. And when you drink the brandy you must of course be completely bald."
Priapic Pranks. However, a rich lad's life is governed not only at home but also in a high-class English boarding school where golfing and keeping one's thoughts and actions dirt-free are more important than education. As the housemaster says, "When smuttiness comes smite it. And here we smite smut. Let there be no question about that. Our little golfers knock it for a loop."
It is a strange, unfriendly world. Young Balthazar's only male friend throughout his introverted existence is a chap named Beefy. An aristocratic orphan whose real name is also Balthazar, Beefy seems to be the protagonist's alter ego. Beefy is boisterous, tough, brawling, and given to priapic pranks. Starting with Beefy's expulsion from school for being a self-confessed "magnificent masturbator," their shared adventures—sometimes poignant, often comic—turn into wretched disasters.