There is a Polish saying that great Polish literature requires three people to suffer: the main character, the writer and the reader. If all three are suffering book becomes part of the school curriculum.
In Dutch literature it seems that the reader has to suffer while the author describes his newest niche fetish to the reader, usually teenagers in secondary school.
With the (sad?) consequence that many Dutch people never pick up another book by a Dutch author again. If there is one thing that school taught me about Dutch literature is that I want it to die, and I will only read books by foreign authors (especially English) out of spite.