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In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training along with jammed fire doors accelerated the propagation of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning materials caused the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this individual too died in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the complete truth about the event stayed concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the blaze was likely set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the source of the character's disaffection may originate in a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book opens with an extended poetic passage in which the narrator explains her challenge to write T's story. “In this second volume,” 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 ferry / had successfully been / ignited.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a type 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 erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually emerges of a female character who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and during those weeks relates to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she accepted an proposal from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are identical—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are devils everywhere.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, magnetic commitment to literature as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Literature instruct us that it is the devil who makes deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the narrator herself is the devil? A third narrative comes finally to light—the story of a girl whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: submit or stay a beast.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a series of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Numerous British readers of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing disaster and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting profit over people. In these first two books of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the fire aboard the ferry and the series of deceptive transactions that ended in mass murder are a sinister underlying presence, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a deepening shadow over all that transpires. Some individuals may doubt how much it is possible to read The Devil Book as a independent piece, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a broader narrative whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as text, as truly experimental writing whose moral and artistic intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this series, no matter where it goes.