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During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic blaze broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Inadequate crew preparedness along with malfunctioning fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates led to the loss of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Since this suspect too died in the incident and was not able to defend the accusations, the full facts about the event remained hidden for many years. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the fire was likely set deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: An Overview

Within the first volume of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, the preceding volume, an unnamed narrator is riding on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she experiences an “eerie sense” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in pursuit of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is strained by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is suggested that the source of the character's discontent may originate in a poor financial decision made on his account by a man known as T.

This New Volume: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's narrative. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she approaches the story indirectly, as a type of allegory. “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 devil.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a female character who spends quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who claimed to be the devil to fulfill all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Pacts and Consequences: A Literary Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not a divine being, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A additional storyline comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with societal norms or suffer further harm. “[This entity] understands that in the game you've created for it, there are two results: surrender or stay a beast.” A third way out is ultimately unveiled through a collection of poems to the night that are also a call to arms against the influences of capital.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Many UK readers of the author's series books will reflect immediately of the London tower fire, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the devil's bargain of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a seven-book sequence, the fire aboard the ship and the series of deceptive business deals that culminated in mass murder are a sinister underlying presence, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of detail or inference yet casting a deepening shadow over all that occurs. Certain individuals may question how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone piece, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I include myself as among them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as text, as properly experimental writing whose moral and artistic intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I will persist to follow this literary journey, no matter where it leads.