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In the early hours of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate staff training along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the spread of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas released from combusting laminates caused the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the tragedy was attributed to a traveler—a truck driver with a history of arson. Given that this suspect also perished in the fire and was not able to refute himself, the full truth regarding the event stayed concealed for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation disclosed the fire was probably started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

Within the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the sidewalk. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in pursuit of him, the character enters a landscape that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the root of the character's discontent may stem from a poor investment made on his behalf by a individual known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Approach

This second installment begins with an extended poetic passage in which the writer explains her challenge to compose T's story. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the pandemic, she tackles the tale 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 sensational story / about businessmen and / the dark force.”

A tale slowly emerges of a female character who experiences lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and during those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who professed to be the devil 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 begin to believe that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the identity of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: an ardent, magnetic commitment to writing as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the story of a young woman whose childhood was marred by abuse and who spent time in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with social expectations or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: submit or stay a beast.” A third way out is ultimately revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Reality

Numerous UK readers of Nordenhof's series books will reflect right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of putting profit over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the blaze aboard the ferry and the chain of deceptive business deals that ended in mass murder are a ominous background presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a growing influence over everything that occurs. Some individuals may question how far it is feasible to read this volume as a independent piece, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately tied into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as among them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as properly experimental literature whose ethical and artistic intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to persist to pursue this literary journey, wherever it leads.