Alex Lemme - "Relief"

"Relief" by Peter Ho Davies is a strange mix between horrific war stories and flashbacks and seemingly out of place sections fully about flatulence. It was interesting to see the interaction between gore and hilarity throughout the story. The initial formal setting and descriptions such as "taking a step back and dropping his arm in a flourish" also contrast starkly with vivid descriptions of the farts discussed at the event in sections such as "I'll die and my only lasting contribution to this life will be a fart in a confounded Latin class" 

Throughout the narration I couldn't help thinking about how accurately chosen the title was. The theme of relief is tied to the relief of surviving a war and the relief of farting, which provides comic relief in a story about the Zulu war. Weird but it works.

The third person narration provided insight into the objective hilarity of the flatulence stories being told as well as the war stories and their horror. Imagery such as "Wilby allowed a sweet but rather too boisterous fart to slip between his buttocks" and "thought again how really remarkably warm Private Williams's leg had felt" was in both cases used to involve the reader into the narration as well as set contrasting tones within one story.