"Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly" by Kenneth O'Hara - June 2019

[Jim]

Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly? by Kenneth O'Hara is our short story read for June 2019. Kenneth O'Hara is a pseudonym for Bryce Walton who contributed many stories to the pulps in the 40s & 50s. His ISFDB page is here:
http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1526

You can read the story for free in multiple formats on Gutenberg.org here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30086

Read it online directly here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30086...

[Cheryl]

I'm going to have to read it again. I must've missed something, because I'm confused....

[Jim]

I have to admit that I didn't read it beyond the first bit which seemed interesting. Hope it wasn't a bad story.

[Anna]

I enjoyed it but not sure what the ending means. I thought it was going to turn out (view spoiler)[ the crew actually knew his plan and were feeding him images to make him think he was out of the tank but he was still in it (hide spoiler)] but that didn't seem to be so. Either I really didn't get it at all or the ending is a bit clumsy and doesn't quite convey what it's supposed to.

[Jim]

I must be prescient. I just read this a couple of weeks ago. It's an interesting early example of a gestalt made up of various inhabitants of the solar system crewing a spaceship exploring the universe. I gave it 3 stars. I got the story from Gutenberg. I just checked there again and Gutenberg has 12 public domain stories by Bryce Walton and I just downloaded the other 11.

[Cheryl]

Yeah, the gestalt is interesting, but what actually happens?

(Jim, do you want us to hide spoilers, or, since it is just a short story, should ppl read this thread at their own risk?)

[Jim]

I guess I'd hide spoilers the first few days or week, don't you think? Not a huge deal either way, I guess.

[Jim]

I just read it & found the ending not what I expected, either. What captured me about the story in the beginning was the idea of the (view spoiler)[alien gestalt (hide spoiler)] combined with the date this story was published, 1954. It's more inclusive than (view spoiler)[More Than Human which was published in 1953 (hide spoiler)] but I also found that surprising for the times. I don't think of the 50s in that way. Especially not the mention of the (view spoiler)[sexual memories that a guy enjoyed of a Venusian female, sort of. (hide spoiler)]

I really liked the ending, too. Usually in these sort of space stories, the guy is (view spoiler)[always right, one way or another. (hide spoiler)] This time he wasn't. In fact, (view spoiler)[he was blubbering with regret & had to be forgiven. (hide spoiler)] A nice change of pace.

I can see why Jim downloaded the rest of his stories. He's a bit of fresh air in the period. I think I got lucky picking this one pretty much randomly. If anyone else is interested in the rest of his stories on Gutenberg.org, they can be found here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/autho...

[Jim]

Jim wrote: "I guess I'd hide spoilers the first few days or week, don't you think? Not a huge deal either way, I guess."

It's a real PITA. Don't bother.

[Oleksandr]

I finished it but I am unsure I understood it. Were the Crew a mix/merger/geshtalt of all individuals on a ship or was it a (parasitic) slime that captured the ship, akin to The Puppet Masters?

[Jim]

I thought it was a by-product of the slime/method which they had willingly used on the ship. I wasn't sure if the world was serendipitous in its similarity or if their ability had outgrown the need for the tank/slime. I haven't reread it with those thoughts in mind, so could well be wrong.

[Oleksandr]

Jim wrote: "I thought it was a by-product of the slime/method which they had willingly used on the ship. "

However, the Crew (slime) didn't want them to finish the journey and lend and Kelly had to wreck the ship

[Jim]

I'm not sure what that has to do with your point. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding. I often want to sleep in, but part of me says I need to get up & do stuff. If it's going to work on a work day, that's a good thing. If it's pushing myself when I'm sick, it's not so good - irrational. I've done both. Why would a complex mind made of disparate individuals be any more unified & rational than an individual's?

[Oleksandr]

Most likely I haven't been clear enough. I meant that the Crew enslaved the individuals, but did it on biochemical level, so they were in willing slavery. And Kelly almost made it, but...

[Jim]

They let him out when asked, though.

[Oleksandr]

Jim wrote: "They let him out when asked, though."

Self-preservation, his maintenance work should keep the ship going

[Ed]

Although not necessary to enjoy the story, I'll mention that this made reference to the song "Has anybody here seen Kelly" which was popular around 1910.

Kelly and his sweetheart wore a very pleasant smile,
And sent upon a holiday they went from Mona's Isle,
They landed safe in London but alas it's sad to say,
For Kelly lost his little girl up Piccadilly way.
She searched for him in vain and then of course began to fret,
And this is the appeal she made to everyone she met:

Has anybody here seen Kelly?
K-E-double-L-Y.
Has anybody here seen Kelly?
Find him if you can!
He's as bad as old Antonio,
Left me on my own-ee-o,
Has anybody here seen Kelly?
Kelly from the Isle of Man!


In the story, the main character hears "K-E-double-L-Y" on the wind.

[Ed]

I like the story and think that it is intentional ambiguous about what happened.

It is possible that at the end, Kelly is on the point of death and hallucinating that he hears the others. Or it is possible that something special about this planet allowed the combined consciousness to continue living without the support of the ship.

Though I don't know what a "breakfast cannister" is, I liked the imagery: the ship was peeled open in glaring strips like a breakfast cannister. A cold wind moaned through the ship that was now nothing but a metal sieve. A hazy light filtered down and ran off the metal like cold flour rust.

This phrase reminds me of Beckett: Kelly had always had the idea that a man should keep going and so now he kept on going. (Beckett said in The Unnamable: "It will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on.")

[Ed]

Jim wrote: " Kenneth O'Hara is a pseudonym for Bryce Walton"

It is also a pseudonym for a woman named Jean Morris. Someone with too much time on their hands could try to fix the various entries here to disambiguate them.

[Cheryl]

Oi. Thanks for all the info.!

[Oleksandr]

Ed wrote: "Although not necessary to enjoy the story, I'll mention that this made reference to the song "Has anybody here seen Kelly" which was popular around 1910."

Thanks for the info, it is exactly a kind of knowledge hard to capture for people outside a culture, all these references

[Leo]

It is a fun story. I thought the slime was where their minds were having a good time. Kelly wanted to create a wake up call, which went wrong. The mind-supporting rock, singing an old song was a very creative ending imo.

[Jim]

Good info, Ed. I really liked the info about the song. That was tickling my mind. Something about it seemed familiar, but I couldn't pin it down. I guess I heard it in an old movie. Here's one rendition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-kB-...

I think of a 'breakfast canister' as a disposable package, like opening a C ration or spam can.

[Ed]

Jim wrote: "... Something about it seemed familiar, but I couldn't pin it down. I guess I heard it in an old movie. ..."

It was also used in a recent movie with "Kelly" changed to "Molly" for no particular reason: "M-O-double-L-Y".

I prefer the Waterboys' song "Has anybody here seen Hank", but don't know if there is any connection, other than the Waterboys being Irish.