Oh Zaperetta!

by Albert Russo

Review by David Alexander Zulu Zapy Wins the Rainbow Nation Authors who, like Shakespeare, make wisdom come out of the mouths of fools are nothing new. In addition to fools, juveniles, curmudgeons and ingenues have all been created by authors to speak truths that would otherwise be hard to take or impossible to fathom. The technique may be as old as literature itself, but the distinction of having done it exceedingly well has been won by only a few. Voltaire, in creating Candide, was among these select few writers. Mark Twain, in Huckleberry Finn was another. Dickens was a master of the art. Albert Russo is also a master of this art, and a modern master at that. His hand is sure and his store of bon mots, exiting with irreppresible verve from his continuing character Zapinette, seems inexhaustible, as does Zapinette's supply of malapropisms attuned to the trend-consciousness of 21st century global society. Indeed while the word malapropism refers to the Dickensian character Mrs. Malapr