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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with malfunctioning safety doors aided the propagation of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas released from combusting laminates led to the deaths of 159 individuals. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this suspect too died in the incident and was not able to defend the accusations, the full truth regarding the event remained concealed for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the root of the character's discontent may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

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 writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A tale slowly emerges of a female character who experiences quarantine in London with a virtual stranger and over the course of those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an offer from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are identical—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Literature teach us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of results: submit or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a collection of verses to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events

Many British audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star books will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book series, the fire aboard the ship and the chain of fraudulent business deals that culminated in mass murder are a sinister underlying presence, revealing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or implication yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Some individuals may doubt how far it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent work, when its purpose and significance are so deeply bound into a broader whole whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I intend to persist to follow this series, wherever it goes.