Dislocation

FICTION Politics, performative law, and a want for justice Ian Callinan. Dislocation. Kew: Arcadia, 2012. 290 pp. n.p. ISBN: 9781921875380

There are moments in Ian Callinan's Dislocation where legal justice collides with emotive morality, reminiscent of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader. In Schlink's novel, empathy muddies any easy equations of retribution. Callinan has chosen similar themes for Dislocation, with the injection of politics. The Reader's Michael is young and a student of justice, and also of compassion. In Dislocation, Bill Liston, an academic, arrives in Tokyo to assist the prosecution in the 1946 Japanese War Crime Trials. Interestingly, Bill's idealism, like Michael's naivety, leads to his playing the role of the apprentice, too.

Bill fervently believes in the importance of prosecuting Japanese war criminals with a Western justice system. However, living in Tokyo is confronting. His attempt to avoid guilt, outrage, and blame surrounding the prosecutions is futile. This situation is compounded by the fact that in these trials only the appearance of justice is important. Chief Justice Bailey, head of the tribunal and Bill's old friend, is loosening the standard protocols of communication and rushing the trials. There is a general "We're the victors. We make the rules" (39) attitude that makes Bill uneasy. It is a simple conflict; Callinan has placed an idealist in a broken world. Bill is dislocated from his academic approach, his home, and his own colleagues.

Bill's idealism...