There was a sense of déjà vu when the Classics clubs sat down to discuss John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer prize winning novel The Grapes of Wrath with many of our members having read it once or even twice before.  Simultaneously lauded and reviled on publication, the vast majority of our readers agreed with the prizes and the best seller lists and loved the novel for its powerful prose, its political perspective, its relevance to modern life, its depth of characterization and its inspiring take on the power of the human spirit to triumph over adversity.  However, for a small minority, the unrelenting arduousness of the Joad’s journey was too distressing to get past and mirrored their own experience of reading the book.