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During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating fire erupted on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness along with jammed safety doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 people. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of fire-setting. Given that this suspect also died in the fire and was not able to refute the accusations, the full facts regarding the event remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the blaze was likely started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both alien and strangely known. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the source of the character's discontent may stem from a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her challenge to write T's story. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a type of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a woman who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and over the course of those weeks tells to him what happened to her a decade before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who professed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, magnetic dedication to writing as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of results: submit or stay a monster.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a series of poems to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality

Many British audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will think right away of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, bears parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over people. In these first two books of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the blaze on board the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background element, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of detail or implication yet projecting a deepening influence over all that occurs. Certain readers may doubt how far it is possible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and significance are so intricately tied into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as truly innovative writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I will continue to pursue this series, no matter where it leads.