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During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate staff training along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas released from combusting materials led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this individual too perished in the incident and was unable to defend the accusations, the complete facts about the disaster remained hidden for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the journey in search of him, the narrator enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the root of Kurt's discontent may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an extended prose poem in which the writer explains her struggle to compose T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale indirectly, as a type of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative slowly unfolds of a woman who experiences lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a figure who professed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, magnetic commitment to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a girl whose early years was marred by abuse and who spent time in a mental health facility, under pressure to conform with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've created for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a series of verses to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Many UK audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, shares parallels in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities 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 projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire aboard the ship and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in mass murder are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet casting a deepening shadow over everything that occurs. Certain readers may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and meaning are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as among them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as truly experimental writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to persist to pursue this series, no matter where it goes.