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During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew training along with jammed safety doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates caused the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect also died in the incident and was unable to refute the accusations, the full truth about the disaster stayed hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was probably started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Literary Series: A Glimpse

In the initial book of Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an elderly man on the street. As the bus drives away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She introduces readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the burdens of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a disastrous financial decision made on his behalf by a man known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an extended prose poem in which the writer describes her struggle to write T's story. “Within this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a woman who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those days tells to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an offer from a figure who professed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the nature of T is legion, for there are devils all around.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who makes bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A third storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose childhood was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with societal norms or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the game you've set for it, there are two outcomes: submit or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a series of verses to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Numerous British audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star books will think immediately of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over people. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the blaze aboard the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background presence, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over everything that transpires. Certain readers may question how far it is possible to interpret The Devil Book as a independent work, when its aim and meaning are so intricately bound into a broader narrative whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as among them—who will become enamored with the author's project purely as written art, as properly experimental writing whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, magnetic devotion to writing as a political act. I intend to persist to pursue this literary journey, wherever it goes.