Жордж Оруэллдің "Міне, сондай еді қуаныштар" атты автобиографиялық эссесі

Autobiographical essay by George Orwell

"Such, Such Were the Joys" is a long autobiographical essay by the English writer George Orwell. In the piece, Orwell describes his experiences between the ages of eight and thirteen, in the years before and during World War I (from September 1911 to December 1916), while a pupil at a preparatory school: St Cyprian's, in the seaside town of Eastbourne, in Sussex. The essay offers various reflections on the contradictions of the Edwardian middle and upper class world view, on the psychology of children, and on the experience of oppression and class conflict. It was probably drafted in 1939–40, revised in 1945–46, and not completed until May or June 1948. It was first published by Partisan Review in 1952, two years after Orwell's death. The veracity of the stories it contains about life at St. Cyprian's has been challenged by a number of commenters, including Orwell's contemporaries at the school and biographers, but its powerful writing and haunting observations have made it one of Orwell's most commonly anthologised essays.

Secondary education for the dominant classes in England since the early 19th century has been provided mainly by the fee paying public schools. These have selective entrance by examination and offer scholarships by competitive examination, which offset all or part of the fees. The curriculum in Orwell's time, and for long after, centred on the classics. Prep schools were established from the 19th century to prepare students for these examinations and to provide a broader based education than the traditional crammer, offering sports and additional subjects. Prep school children were often boarders, starting as early as five or as late as twelve. Boarding was, and still is, for terms of three months. Eastbourne was a popular town for preparatory schools at the turn of the 20th century because its bracing sea air was believed to be healthy, and by 1896, Gowland's Eastbourne Directory listed 76 private schools for boys and girls. An Eton scholarship was most highly prized, not just for its financial value but because it provided access to the elite intellectual cadre of King's Scholars. One of the leading prep schools of the time, Summer Fields School, set in the university town of Oxford and with which St Cyprian's eventually was to merge, won every year at least five of the available Eton scholarships. Orwell's mother sent him (as Eric Blair) to board at St Cyprian's School at the age of eight in 1911. The school had been founded twelve years earlier by the headmaster, Vaughan Wilkes, and his wife Cicely. It had moved into newly built facilities in extended grounds in 1906. Although able to charge high fees for better off parents, the Wilkeses supported traditional families on lower incomes, particularly in the colonial service, by taking their children at considerably reduced fees. Orwell was one of several beneficiaries, who also included Cyril Connolly, Alaric Jacob, and Walter Christie. Mrs Wilkes spotted Orwell looking sad on his arrival and tried to comfort him, but noted "there was no warmth in him". Nor did he respond positively to being taken on a picnic the following day. and Bolo Whistler. His early letters home report a normal catalogue of class placings, results of games, and school expeditions. and formed a close friendship with Orwell. The First World War had just broken out, and Orwell's patriotic poem written at school was published in the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard. The war made life difficult for the school – most of the teaching staff left to fight, although one staff member Charles Edgar Loseby, later a Labour MP, returned for a period while recovering from being gassed in the trenches. The First World War had a significant effect in other ways – there was the increasing roll call of old boys killed in the trenches, Mr Wilkes spent his summer holidays driving ambulances in France, the boys knitted and put on entertainments for the injured troops camped nearby, and food shortages made feeding a challenge. Outings on the South Downs were a regular part of school life, and Sillar led the boys on nature study expeditions. The school had instituted a Cadet Corps, in which Orwell was an active member. and Connolly describes how they reviewed each other's poetry. Cecil Beaton vaguely recalled working on the school's war time allotments with Orwell. During his time at school, Orwell surreptitiously collected the saucy seaside postcards that were later to figure in his essay The Art of Donald McGill. In 1916 Orwell came second in the Harrow History Prize, had another poem published in the Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard, and with Connolly had his work praised by the external examiner Sir Charles Grant Robertson. Other activities in which Orwell was involved included narrowly missing winning the diving competition, playing the part of Mr Jingle in the school play, and being commended as a useful member of the 1st XI cricket team. partly as a "sort of pendant"

Sonia Orwell and Warburg both wanted to publish Such, Such Were the Joys immediately after Orwell's death, but Sir Richard Rees, who was Orwell's literary executor violently disagreed. He considered the work "grossly exaggerated, badly written, and likely to harm Orwell's reputation" and when Sonia insisted, he told her, "You’re completely nutty about St Cyprian's". Thereafter, Rees had no further involvement in publishing decisions. In 1952, within two years of Orwell's death a version was published in the United States in the Partisan Review. In this version the school was referred to as "Crossgates" and the names of the headmaster and his wife altered to Mr and Mrs Simpson ("Sim" and his wife "Bingo"). Following Mrs Wilkes' death in 1967, "Such, Such Were the Joys" was published in the UK, but with only the name of the school and the proprietors in original form – the real names of his fellow pupils were still disguised. In the Completed Works edition (2000), the original text including all names has been restored. Most biographers have to a greater or lesser extent concluded that "Such, Such Were the Joys" significantly misrepresents the school and exaggerates Orwell's suffering there. David Farrer, partner of Orwell's publishers, considered it a "gross distortion of what took place".

Of his contemporaries, Cecil Beaton wrote of the piece "It is hilariously funny, but it is exaggerated". Walter Christie and Henry Longhurst went further and wrote their own sympathetic accounts of the school in response to Orwell's and voiced their appreciation for the formidable Mrs Wilkes. Robert Pearce, researching the papers of another former pupil, made a comprehensive study from the perspective of the school, investigating school records and other pupils' accounts. While some features were universal features of prep school life, he concluded that Orwell's depiction bore little relation to reality and that Orwell's defamatory allegations were unsupportable. On Orwell's claimed state of misery, Jacintha Buddicom, who knew him well at the time, also raised a strong challenge. She wrote "I can guarantee that the 'I' of "Such, Such were the Joys" is quite unrecognisable as Eric as we knew him then", and "He was a philosophical boy, with varied interests and a sense of humour—which he was inclined to indulge when referring to St Cyprian's in the holidays."