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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Science
Letters

The Proustian draw of sexy hawthorn

Marcel Proust.
Marcel Proust. Photograph: adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images

It is surprising that your stimulating and relevant supplement (Age of rage: the ultimate guide to anger, 11 May) appears to overlook a major effect of anger: scapegoating, ie the displacement of anger from its authentic cause to another target, an innocent or uninvolved victim of the displaced emotion. It is surely key to say something about this pervasive behaviour given its disturbing destructive effects.
Dr Monica Threlfall
London

• Timothy Garton Ash speaks of “the miraculously non-violent collapse in 1989-91 of a nuclear-armed Russian empire” (The long read, 9 May). This formulation fails completely to acknowledge the role of Gorbachev in the process of change at the time and later. We owe him a lot.
Anthony Rudolf
London

• Surprised that Sarah Jessica Parker recommends the Timpson shop in Kensington (Say what?, G2, 14 May)? Do you not know that Timpson has an exemplary record of offering employment and promotion to ex-offenders (Report, 6 April)? Maybe Ms Parker was focusing on this?
Gareth Jones
London

• The scent of hawthorn described in Carey Davies’ country diary (13 May) is evoked most strongly in Proust’s Swann’s Way when the narrator is overwhelmed by the hawthorn blossom. Immediately afterwards, he sees his first great love. Sex certainly.
Michael Harrison
Oxford

• I note that the footballer Danny Drinkwater has received a ban for drink-driving (Report, 14 May). A case of nominative anti-determinism?
Elizabeth Brett
Welling, Kent

• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com

• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters

• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition

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