Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Latest Analysis: A Scandinavian Literary Sequence Aflame with Intent

During the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze broke out aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew training combined with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates led to the deaths of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Given that this individual also died in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the full facts about the event remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the blaze was likely set deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the first volume of Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is riding on a bus through Copenhagen when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the journey in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both alien and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is suggested that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a man referred to as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's story. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she approaches the tale indirectly, as a form 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 dark force.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a female character who spends lockdown in London with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks tells to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his intentions. As the elements of the two stories become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces all around.

There is another fire here: a passionate, compelling commitment to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who does bargains, not God, and that we enter into them at our peril. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional narrative comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to conform with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: submit or stay a beast.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a series of poems to the darkness that are also a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous UK audience members of Nordenhof's series novels will reflect right away of the London tower fire, which, though accidental in origin, bears parallels in that the ensuing disaster and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of putting profit 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 multiple deaths are a sinister underlying element, showing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or implication yet casting a growing shadow over everything that transpires. Some individuals may question how far it is feasible to read this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its aim and significance are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Fused

There will be others—and I include myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose ethical and creative intent are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, attractive devotion to writing as a political act. I intend to persist to pursue this literary journey, wherever it leads.