RJ's Ebooks (Ebook, ISBN not provided)
I staunchly advocate electronic publications. The potential for electronic publishing remains vastly under-rated and more likely to be abused or misused than harvested for the good it can bring.

The problem lies, really, in the adaptability of the media. Volumes like That's the Kind of Person She Is can be published at minimal cost for very little risk. Unfortunately, -- and here's the major rub -- many such books also receive minimal editing.

Belgum's brave idea -- small, lyrical verses that provide vignettes from the life of an unknown woman -- doesn't really work as a novel. The book wants to be a collection of poetry, specifically nonsense verse. The individual scenes never tie together into a greater whole. Instead we read descriptions:

Her sister is not tall, nor is she short.

The shoes don't change that.

Which, when viewed through a haze of cannabis smoke and a sugar cube, might actually mean something really deep and philosophical. Unfortunately, for this reader, the novel appeared as nothing more than a cleverly arranged set of meaningless words.

Not that one can't find art in That's the Kind of Person She Is. On occasion, the phrasing and composition prove emotive and surreal. The problem lies in the broken, bitty assembly of the novel. Nothing binds the tiny sections together. Nothing makes the reader want to keep reading and, for this reader, nothing made the assortment of cleverly twisted surrealistic wordplay interesting.

Lewis Carroll set the capricious fancy of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass into a solid reality to give the reader a standpoint from which to view and appreciate the whole. That kind of stability doesn't exist for That's the Kind of Person She Is.

Belgum's effort stands as a brave attempt of Modern Art in the literary world. Unfortunately lacks the panache to carry it off.

Stephen Smith

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