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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from burning materials led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this individual also died in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the full truth about the event stayed hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the fire was probably set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the street. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's discontent may originate in a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator explains her struggle to compose T's story. “Within this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she tackles the story indirectly, as a type of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A tale gradually emerges of a female character who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days tells to him what happened to her a decade before, when she accepted an offer from a figure who professed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are devils everywhere.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose childhood was marred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a collection of verses to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Numerous UK readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the fire aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background presence, showing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a deepening shadow over everything that occurs. Some individuals may question how far it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and meaning are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly innovative literature whose ethical and artistic purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, magnetic devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to pursue this series, no matter where it goes.