2 out of 5

You know how our own pet is always the most cute and unique creature, and meanwhile everyone else has similar stories and feelings about their pet? This book is kind of like that, but for Norwegian culture.

I’m sure there’s something to circular about calling this one of “the funniest book about Norwegians” (from the back cover copy) when the “humor,” written by a Norwegian, is… like the kind of half-jokes you make at a business meeting, playing it safe with something that some might smile at, but can otherwise fly under the radar. That is: this isn’t laugh out loud stuff. …But maybe it is to Norwegians, maybe making that cover copy very accurate.

Otherwise, the material falls into that category suggested by my opening: a lot of these laws are just social norms that I imagine have proxies all over the world, and aren’t especially “Norwegians are just like me!” to point out – moreso that I would’ve assumed anyone with some generalized concepts of politeness would understand, if not follow.

Of course, there are those things that feel very particular, and those can be fun. And I don’t mean to suggest that the book is without mirth, as occasionally the very reserved Norwegian peoples’ apparently dry humor bubbles into a pretty sharp little barb, at least as translated by Elise H, Kollerud. Following that up with a criticism, though: Kollerud’s translation does have some stumbles, and so maybe some of this stuff also reads funnier in its original language.

Extend the general vibe here to Cecilie Øien’s illustrations, which don’t typically follow the humor-book trend of necessarily highlighting the primary gag or concept of the page. Sometimes they do, but sometimes it’s just an illustration of the moment right before whatever social law is enacted – it’s just a picture of some people lookin’ normal. If there were more of these, it wouldn’t be as noticeable, but that’s when we get into the design of this book, which feels, surprise, kinda bland. The laws are spread out to one or two per page, or sometimes spread across multiple pages, but then that makes the illustrations only appear every several pages – in its 115 pages, only 25 illustrations appear, and sometimes those are multiple page gags (meaning that fewer than 25 individual laws are illustrated). That’s not meant to denigrate the efforts of the artist (and colorist, Ann Kristin Vangen), just pointing out that there’s ultimately not very much going on, and the black text / white page layout doesn’t distract too much otherwise.

Eh, all of which is to say: I think this helps me understand / expect that Norwegians are generally pretty inexpressive types (or are not overly expressive), and have some specific social rules regarding skiing and saying hello to one another, so, goal achieved in that sense. But that’s clear after a few pages; the 115 don’t add much to that puzzle, and can be pretty sparse, content-wise. As far as this being a humor book, let’s just suppose it’s pretty hilarious to Norwegians.