I downloaded John Ross Browne’s book on his travels in Russia and Scandinavia, The Land of Thor, because it was an old account of those regions that I’d never heard of (such accounts can be invaluable for the historical writer), and because I could get it free as a Kindle e-book. Now that I know better, I recommend going to The Guttenberg Project instead, and downloading the illustrated version, as the author’s drawings are half the point.
John Ross Browne was born in Ireland, but raised in the United States. He eventually became a proud—nay, arrogant—citizen of the state of California. He was a frequent contributor of both stories and illustrations to Harper’s Weekly Magazine. For a period of his life around the Civil War he moved to Germany and took the opportunity to travel extensively, sending reports to Harper’s and compiling them into books when he was finished. The Land of Thor is one of those.
The first third of the book isn’t about Scandinavia at all, but about Russia. This is, I suppose, excusable when you remember that Swedes founded the country. He provides lively accounts of St. Petersburg and Moscow, describing the cities and landscape, but concentrating on the people, whom he views with some amusement. He finds them abysmally ignorant, dirty, and coarse, but is surprised at the freedom they exercise in the areas where they enjoy freedom—mainly in drunkenness and carousing. He finds many of them kind, and forgives them their manners in light of the burdens under which they live. To be fair to him—this is true all through the book—the bulk of his jokes are on himself.
Moving on to Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, he likes the people better (especially admiring the women), finding them diligent and honest, if poorly educated and superstitious.
In feature and general appearance the Swedes are handsomer than the southern races of Europe, and for that reason wear a nearer resemblance to the Americans. I saw several men in Stockholm who would not have done discredit to California….
The final section recounts a visit to Iceland, at a later date. He has a good time in that fascinating country, and likes the Icelanders very much, especially his honest and competent guide, but pities them their limited prospects.
Throughout the book he provides what at the time must have seemed pretty racy accounts of encounters with various women (although the one in Russia, he himself admits, was only in a dream). There is the group of young women who come to the beach in Finland where he thinks he is bathing privately, and proceed to remove their clothes and enter the water, blocking him from collecting his own clothing. And the pretty Norwegian girl who nonplusses him by accompanying him on one leg of a journey in a post carriage, to take the horse back from the next station (a job usually reserved for little boys). And the girl in an Iceland farm house who accompanies him to his bedroom, for the purpose of helping him undress (nonsexually, but to his embarrassment).
The most delightful part of his account, I thought, is his report of his meeting with Hans Christian Anderson in Copenhagen. Anderson was rather different from what I would have expected, sort of a big puppy of a man, eager to please and delighted to discover that his works were read as far away as the west coast of the United States.
Wherever Browne goes, he makes comparisons to the United States, especially California, always to California’s advantage. These were times when citizens of all nations indulged in chauvinism cheerfully and without guilt.
The modern reader of J. R. Browne will probably be reminded of Mark Twain, and there’s a reason for that. Browne was in fact an influence on Mark Twain’s style. However, Twain’s dictum that “the difference between the right word, and almost the right word, is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug,” definitely applies here. Browne’s attitude is similar to Twain’s, and his stories are amusing, but he generally fails to find that perfect word combination which, in the master’s hands, would have delivered genuine hilarity.
Still, he manages to get a few good lines off.
Nothing pleases me better than to annoy an Englishman by doing every thing that he most dislikes, because he makes it a point to be disagreeable and unmannerly; carries his nationality wherever he goes, and it does me good to furnish him with material for criticism. Out of pure good nature, I meet him half way…
Not a necessary book at all, The Land Of Thor is nevertheless an amusing snapshot of a moment in historical time. But make sure to get the illustrated version. And if you need a dead tree version, you’re pretty much out of luck unless you’ve got thirty-five bucks to spend.