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In the early hours of April 7 1990, a devastating fire broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient staff training along with jammed fire doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from burning materials led to the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Given that this individual too died in the incident and was unable to refute himself, the full facts regarding the disaster remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the blaze was probably started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the source of the character's discontent may originate in a disastrous investment made on his account by a man referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her challenge to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A narrative slowly unfolds of a female character who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and during those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who claimed to be the devil to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the devil who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a mental health facility, under duress to conform with societal norms or endure more of the same. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or stay a monster.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a series of poems to the night that are also a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Many British readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will think immediately of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, shares parallels in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet casting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Some individuals may question how far it is feasible to read this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and significance are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will become enamored with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I intend to continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it leads.