🔗 Share this article

In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning materials led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was attributed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Given that this individual too perished in the fire and was not able to defend the accusations, the complete truth about the event stayed hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the fire was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Series: An Overview

Within the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in search of him, the narrator finds herself in 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 conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator explains her struggle to write T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a form of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative slowly unfolds of a female character who experiences quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and during 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 fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, compelling dedication to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with social expectations or suffer more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are a pair of results: surrender or remain a monster.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a series of verses to the darkness that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British audience members of the author's series books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, shares similarities in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over people. In these initial books of what is planned to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze on board the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous background presence, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or implication yet projecting a deepening influence over all that occurs. Some individuals may question how much it is feasible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its purpose and meaning are so deeply tied into a broader narrative whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose moral and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a statement. I will persist to follow this series, wherever it leads.