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In the early hours of April 7 1990, a devastating blaze broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient crew preparedness along with malfunctioning safety doors aided the spread of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from burning materials caused the deaths of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this suspect also perished in the incident and was not able to defend the accusations, the complete facts about the disaster remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both alien and deeply familiar. She presents us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the source of Kurt's discontent may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his account by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Approach

This second installment opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator explains her challenge to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who experiences quarantine in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and during those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic commitment to literature as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Literature teach us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was scarred by abuse and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: submit or stay a beast.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a series of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British readers of the author's series books will reflect immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, bears parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the fire on board the ship and the series of fraudulent transactions that culminated in mass murder are a ominous underlying presence, revealing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a deepening shadow over everything that occurs. Some readers may question how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately bound into a broader whole whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as truly experimental literature whose moral and artistic purpose are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, magnetic devotion to writing as a statement. I intend to continue to follow this literary journey, no matter where it leads.