Saturday Night riots and summery justice

David Sillitoe believes Arthur Seaton, the hero of his late father's novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning , would not have been "breaking shop windows and stealing phones" ( On the trail of an angry young man , G2, 16 August). I'm not so sure. In chapter five, Arthur says he would like to blow up Nottingham Castle, by planting "a thousand tons of bone-dry TNT in the tunnel called Mortimer's Hole". In chapter seven he expresses solidarity with a man who has just heaved a brick through a shop window. With his brother, Arthur then takes revenge on a drunken motorist whose car has hit him, by tipping the offending vehicle over. Alan Sillitoe shows how such destructive acts might feel empowering to a disaffected young man in an unjust world; though "locked in a revengeful act they felt a sublime team-spirit of effort filling their hearts with a radiant light of unique power and value, of achievement and hope for greater and better things". Professor John Goodridge Nottingham Trent University • "Some people would consider," [the clerk] observed, "that stealing the motor-car was the worst offence; and so it is. But cheeking the police undoubtedly carries the severest penalty; and so it ought. Supposing you were to say twelve months for the theft, which is mild; and three years for the furious driving, which is lenient; and fifteen years for the cheek ... those figures, if added together correctly, tot up to nineteen years." "First rate!" said the Chairman. Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in The Willows , 1908. Gavin Ross Harpenden, Hertfordshire • Thanks for printing Naomi Klein's subtle and provocative article ( If you rob people of the little they have, expect resistance , 18 August). It's a good job she didn't publish it on Facebook or she would have been summoned for incitement. Geof Branch London • I was astonished to read my letter (16 August) after you had taken it upon yourself to remove two crucial conditions from the central point. Those who set out deliberately to raise a child without any prospect of that child having a resident supporting parent, and those who engineer this situation for gain, are not in the same category as those who find themselves conscientious single parents through no fault of their own. A benefits system which encourages the former is not welfare; it is the reverse. All the evidence is that the system tends to cause a chain of misery through childhood and dependency thereafter. David Brancher Abergavenny, Monmouthshire • Following the August riots, we should not be surprised to see summery justice. Ian Brooker Crawley, West Sussex