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In the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew training along with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the propagation of the flames, while toxic hydrogen cyanide gas released from burning laminates led to the loss of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was blamed to a traveler—a truck driver with a record of arson. Since this suspect too died in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the complete truth about the event remained hidden for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed documentary revealed the fire was likely started deliberately as part of an insurance fraud.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star series, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a bus through Copenhagen 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 journey in search of him, the character enters a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She introduces us to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is tested by the burdens of their conflicted pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the source of Kurt's discontent may originate in a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

This New Volume: An Unconventional Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an extended prose poem in which the writer describes her challenge to write T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were supposed / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and derailed by the pandemic, she approaches the tale obliquely, as a type of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my book / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A narrative slowly emerges of a woman who experiences lockdown in London with a virtual stranger and over the course of those days relates to him what happened to her a ten years before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who claimed to be the evil entity to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more intertwined, we start to believe that they are identical—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, magnetic dedication to literature as a form of activism

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the devil who does deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? A third storyline eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under duress to comply with social expectations or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two results: surrender or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a collection of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British audience members of the author's Scandinavian Star novels will think right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be attributed at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing profit over human lives. In these initial books of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of deceptive transactions that culminated in multiple deaths are a ominous underlying presence, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet projecting a growing influence over all that transpires. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is possible to read this volume as a stand-alone work, when its aim and meaning are so deeply tied into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as text, as properly innovative writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we require / that as well.” Another kind of blaze exists: an intense, magnetic devotion to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this literary journey, wherever it goes.