Innocence Betrayed

If you want to know in what way guilt means innocence, how innocence means guilt, in what way guilt and innocence are not related in any way, one to the other, or how they are one and the same thing, then you must read Innocence Betrayed.

In Innocence Betrayed, Dumo Oruobu has elevated The Penguin – an ordinary bird, to the level of a Pantheon – a myth and a delight, and for that bird which is a bird only because it has feathers and wings – only those, but is not a bird in any other way that most birds are known to be, not only because it cannot, and does not fly, but also because, on the frontier of love and loving – chastity and faithfulness – marriage – certificated marriage about which it does not know, it is faithful to it’s Mate or Partner from the first day of that their Partnership until it dies on it’s last day on Earth in obedience to The Will of God The Almighty Architect of The entire Universe and all that are in it which obey Him except man, and, as Dumo says, woman – woman grotesquely personified and portrayed in here by Kalaiyiingibo, to their eternal shame.

His Stylistic fervour in the employment and deployment of the elements of surprise, of making the obvious look mysterious and not there, his Commentaries on issues long discussed and dismissed as over with but present in the now as though they were new break away glitters of sunshine from clouds shining bright but covering the sun’s shine, hits you as a very benign Gobo but makes you pulsate with a desire for more of what he is taking you through effortlessly. The train is moving on with uncanny rapidity, and you know it – you can feel it, yes, because you are on it, and enjoying the ride, the ambience of it’s interior, and the wonders of the mesmerizing Scenery as it glides by, and yet you’ve got other fish to fry and desire desperately to get down to go frying those other fish, but you are fixated… you are numb and dumb, and cannot say stop. You lack the will power to say STOP!