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In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with malfunctioning safety doors aided the propagation of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates caused the deaths of 159 people. At first, the disaster was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this individual also perished in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the full facts about the event remained concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive investigation disclosed the blaze was likely set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the street. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the journey in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the source of Kurt'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 begins with an extended prose poem in which the narrator explains her challenge to write T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and during those days relates to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling dedication to literature as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who does deals, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the devil? A third narrative comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose childhood was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are two results: surrender or stay a beast.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a series of poems to the night that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous UK audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, shares parallels in that the ensuing disaster and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these first two books of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire on board the ferry and the series of deceptive transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister underlying element, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or implication yet casting a deepening influence over all that transpires. Some readers may doubt how far it is possible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as text, as properly innovative writing whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we require / that as well.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic devotion to writing as a statement. I intend to persist to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it goes.