The Lawson misunderstanding.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)

SIR: Thank you for Patrick Morgan's timely reading of Henry Lawson's works (November 2007)--and in the same issue for the apt and witty title of Coman and Jones' dingo article, "The Loaded Dog".

It has puzzled me that Lawson's fine early stories could be seen as embodying Australian values of humour and toughness and mateship. No, Lawson-land is where the sheoaks sigh; where even the hardiest may just survive physically but never blossom or thrive; where someone may "water them geraniums", though no one can nurture the "dried-up-looking children" burdened too soon with adult responsibilities and the greater weight of meeting adult emotional needs--the "eldest girl at home" with her "little old face" at the age of nine or ten, the eldest little boy who exclaims he "won't never go drovin'" and leave his lonely mother (as he will and must).

Readers have often passed over the crucial first two pages of "The Bush Undertaker" so that ...