Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Latest Analysis: A Scandinavian Series Burning with Purpose

During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire broke out on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient staff training combined with jammed safety doors aided the spread of the flames, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a truck driver with a record of fire-setting. Given that this individual too perished in the fire and was not able to defend himself, the complete facts regarding the event remained concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the blaze was probably set deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

In the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic series, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is riding on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their conflicted pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the root of the character's discontent may stem from a disastrous investment made on his account by a individual referred to as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer describes her struggle 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 waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale indirectly, as a type of parable. “It occurred to me / 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 emerges of a woman who spends lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and during those weeks relates to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she accepted an offer from a figure who claimed to be the devil to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling dedication to writing as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Literature teach us that it is the devil who makes bargains, not God, and that we enter into them at our risk. But suppose the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional narrative eventually emerges—the story of a young woman whose early years was marred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to conform with societal norms or endure further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: surrender or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a collection of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of capital.

Connections and Readings: From Fiction to Reality

Many UK readers of the author's series books will think right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over people. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book series, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that ended in mass murder are a ominous underlying element, showing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over everything that transpires. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is possible to read The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately bound into a larger narrative whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I include myself as one of them—who will become enamored with the author's endeavor purely as text, as truly experimental literature whose ethical and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, magnetic devotion to writing as a statement. I will persist to pursue this series, no matter where it leads.