FOUND! Humorous illustrated book about Scandinavians, possibly 80s to 90s?

[pronker]

Chapters delineated the various Scandinavians in funny color illustrations, a section on each Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or Icelandic group, accompanied by appropriate paragraphs of descriptions in the fashion of a bestiary. The group I remember best are the Icelandic peoples because special attention revealed pride in their last name customs, Althingi, and generally posing as "super-Scandinavians." It may have been coffee-table-sized? Anyway, it was hilarious; I completely blank on the title. Thanks for any help!

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

Are the 80’s-90’s the time frame when you read the book—-narrowing the publication date range—-and what was the target age range?

[pronker]

Yes, the time frame for when I read the book - I recall its publication to be concurrent with those times. As for the age range, it was a sophisticated book with outrageous caricatures of Scandinavians, so definitely along the lines of "101 Uses for a Dead Cat" sort of college-age brattiness. :)

Other books I read in those years were *paraphrased titles*: "Vanessa" which was a parody of bodice rippers, "Guide to Geezers" which featured a caricature of an oldster turning into a geezer from a Granddad, and anything by Henry N. Beard.

[full_metal_ox]

Okay; the main thing I’ve been finding within your stated time frame is Scandinavian Humor and Other Myths (first published in 1986) by John Louis Anderson, but that deals chiefly with New World diasporic communities and doesn’t seem to taxonomize among nationalities.

https://archive.org/details/scandinavianhumo00john/mode/1up

A search for various combinations of “Scandinavian”, “humor”, “picture book”, “culture”, and “typology” or “taxonomy” has so far been been yielding:

1. Folksy tourist-bureau joke books with colored-paper covers, whose humor leans to stereotypes (stodgy! undemonstrative! xenophobic!), search-and-replace fool jokes and marital discord jokes, and corny accents.

1a: The Swedish stock characters “Ole and Lena” are a apparently a subgenre unto themselves, enough to sustain a whole joke book series.

2. Relentless examinations of hygge, often in conjunction with products you can buy to achieve it.

3. Children’s picture books.

4. Lifestyle guides often informed by a steaming pile of Unfortunate Implications, particularly if you add the search term “Nordic.”

*taps ends of fingers together* Excellent!

[pronker]

Yes, I've definitely read this, thanks for your googlefu. I checked it out in the archive, where I've an account. Thanks! Ole and Lena jokes, ha! And the Polish, Italian and such joke books, some funny, sort of hit and miss. Anyway, this can be marked found because now I'm thinking that I blended this book with a lavishly illustrated book of caricatures that left one glued in memory: A blond mustachioed Viking type hefting a beer stein while singing at full throttle.

Re: *taps ends of fingers together* Excellent!

[full_metal_ox]

You can find a breakdown of various Scandinavian cultures by country, from a British expat’s Outsider Perspective, in this more recent (2014) book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Almost_Nearly_Perfect_People