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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew preparedness combined with jammed fire doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates caused the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Given that this suspect also perished in the fire and was not able to refute the accusations, the full facts regarding the disaster remained concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was likely set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is riding on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is suggested that the source of the character's discontent may originate in a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer describes her struggle to compose T's story. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type 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 erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A tale gradually emerges of a female character who spends lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks tells to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she accepted an offer from a man who professed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Exploration

Literature teach us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional narrative comes finally to light—the account of a young woman whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[This entity] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: submit or remain a beast.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a series of poems to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though accidental in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a ominous underlying presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Some individuals may question how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a independent work, when its purpose and significance are so deeply bound into a larger narrative whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose moral and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive devotion to writing as a political act. I will continue to pursue this literary journey, wherever it leads.