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In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient staff preparedness combined with malfunctioning fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates led to the loss of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of fire-setting. Given that this individual also died in the fire and was unable to refute the accusations, the full truth about the disaster stayed concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the fire was probably set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is riding on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the journey in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's disaffection may stem from a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer explains her challenge to compose T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a woman who experiences lockdown in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and over the course of those weeks relates to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an offer from a figure who claimed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the elements of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are identical—or at the very least that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: a passionate, compelling dedication to writing as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who does bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the story of a young woman whose early years was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with societal norms or endure further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: surrender or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British readers of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star books will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing disaster and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these initial books of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the blaze aboard the ship and the chain of fraudulent business deals that culminated in multiple deaths are a sinister underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a deepening influence over everything that transpires. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is possible to interpret this volume as a independent work, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as among them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as text, as truly experimental literature whose moral and artistic intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I intend to persist to pursue this series, wherever it leads.