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In the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training combined with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas released from combusting materials caused the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this suspect too perished in the fire and was not able to defend the accusations, the full truth regarding the event remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the burdens of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the root of the character's disaffection may stem from a poor investment made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

The Devil Book begins with an extended poetic passage in which the writer describes her challenge to write T's narrative. “In 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 blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a form of allegory. “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 entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale gradually emerges of a female character who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days tells to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a figure 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 one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the dark figure who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose childhood was marred by abuse and who spent time in a mental health facility, under duress to comply with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of results: submit or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a series of verses to the darkness that are also a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will think right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in origin, bears parallels in that the resulting tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the fire on board the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous background element, showing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or inference yet casting a growing influence over everything that transpires. Certain individuals may question how much it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and significance are so deeply tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's endeavor purely as text, as properly innovative literature whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I intend to continue to pursue this literary journey, no matter where it goes.