Books in the news; The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B

I like spoiled on books and unloads a quick look at not only published material and the books of current interest. Your host is Alex Boyd in the cereal department at the University of Illinois Library. A Beatitude is generally taken to mean a blessing. Martha Zoller the hero of JP down the beast the beast the beatitudes of Botha's Abi published by Della court a press has an abundance of what some would consider blessings he's born into wealth. A 10 snobbish European schools and is able to travel extensively at will but ever so gently the same Beatitudes help to destroy Balthazar. He literally ceases to exist spiritually in the midst of his material possessions. The transformation of bath from a bright happy child into a sad and bitter man not yet 30 reflects the sometimes sinister aspects of wealth and position the rich at least the rich upper classes of Europe in the decades between the two great wars lived by a very narrow unyielding set of rules. Ordinary existence is impossible especially if you are a sensitive kind and shy as Balthasar are.

The one blessing he seeks more than any other is that of being loved and loving. But this is through a series of tragedies denied him. His brother dies and he's quite young leaving him to a selfish self-seeking mother. October boarding school while she joins the 1930's equivalent of the jet set. When he's only 12 he falls in love with his governess. There's nothing sordid or distasteful about this relationship. The woman is nearly twice his age. Yet the whole episode is filled with such charm and innocence. The bottles as successive attempts at love seem anti-climatic. After his mother returns long enough to break up this affair. Bob tries again and again and each affair. Lives and crushes the Spirit as it begins in joy and dies in pain. The other main character of the book Baby Appears as alter ego where Botha's out is withdrawn and shy because he is just opposite where bathos speaks little and

thinks obsessively beefy talks unceasingly up sensibly without much thought. This however is misleading and often beefy has acquired a shop ness and shrewdness coupled with natural intelligence that apparently makes him much more capable of surviving in Botha's world than Balthazar. Also Bernard to wealth misfortune Strax beefy and Poppy sets in quite early. Together from prep school through college from birth to which they're expelled because of baby's antics. They also newly drawn together and pulled apart. Somehow they find each other some of the love they fail to see from their parents or their society. Each has something different to offer the society but from opposite directions. Get some rigid arts parameters that never can be accepted. The plot of battles Abi is not original. What when is this novel different is it setting that up Alan and in one thousand thirties and 1040s. JP Don Levitz understanding of Ireland and the Irish is uncanny. Most of the action

centers in Dublin and Trinity College and a more fascinating setting is seldom found in literature. Brooklyn born of Irish parents Don Libby studied at Trinity College and made his home for a while in Ireland. The album he creates is alternately beautiful and coarse comic or tragic but always enigmatic. The supporting characters in the novel exemplify this. The Irish are passionate in their dislikes superstitious and fun loving and most of all totally uncompelling compromising in their religion. You're either Catholic or Protestant with a no man's land in between the inhabits habitants and the island work a kind of spell on Balthazar and beefy. They continually denounce the country the people the climate and the food. Yet when it's least War time to wander across Europe they inevitably return. Somehow their own unique this finds solace in the uniqueness of Ireland. The base of the Beatitudes a bottle's lobby is not of course the prolific novel the sexual scenes are brilliant and Don Levy's

humor laces through the book as shoppers Irish coffee through the throat moving in dramatic passages of love a balanced with episodes illustrating the earthy humor of the Irish yet occasionally the action falters the reader may tire of Bebe's inept failures and Baltazar submission to a drifting English existence but the beastly beatitudes of Botha's Abi is still an excellent book well worth reading. This has been books in the nose prepared and presented by Alex Boyd and sponsored by the Illinois State Library. This program was distributed by the national educational radio network.