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The Dutch education system forced us to read many Dutch works of literature every year in the last years of highschool. This completely ruined my joynin reading, since imo most Dutch literature is boring. Interesting books like the Lord of the Rings or Dune were not allowed since they weren't Dutch.
The worst memory of them all was the book called "De Grote Zaal". Basically the entire book was about a dying old lady in the last years of her life reflecting on her life. It wasn't a thick book, but it felt like it took ages because nothing happened and it had exactly nothing in common with the average life and interests of a highschooler.
Before the last years of highschool I'd always read books for fun, even when school started requiring it, because it was fun. Books like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter (fck J.K Rowling), Star Wars, and countless others that I'm missing were great fun. But Dutch literature is a lot about old people, WW2, etc. Dutch fantasy books were not considered literature because they were too much fun to read.
Same exact experience. Dutch literature is horrid. It's a lot of sad depression and drugs. There's a reason almost everyone read "het diner" or "het gouden ei" since those are doable. There seriously isn't anything exciting like a detective or the stuff you mentioned. Not even a 1984, which is a depressing book but at least there's some excitement. It really seems most Dutch literature is just pages of misery and nothing happening.
For English literature I read the lord of the rings. Way more pages, much more fun.
Yeah exactly. I always looked forward to reading English books. And in German classes I'd also look forward to reading, though that probably had to do more with how bad I was at German. Dutch literature is just boring and depressing for most highschoolers. I'm sure for some older people it was exciting, and those must've been the people deciding that forcing us to read this stuff was a good idea.