Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Latest Review: A Scandinavian Literary Sequence Burning with Intent

In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry operating between Oslo and Frederikshavn. Insufficient staff training combined with malfunctioning safety doors aided the spread of the flames, while toxic cyanide gas released from burning laminates caused the deaths of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this individual too died in the incident and was unable to refute himself, the full facts regarding the disaster remained hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a detailed investigation disclosed the fire was likely started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: An Overview

In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the street. As the bus moves away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a piece of him with her. Driven to retrace the route in search of him, the character enters a landscape that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the pressures of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the source of Kurt's discontent may stem from a disastrous investment made on his behalf by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Approach

This second installment opens with an lengthy prose poem in which the writer explains her struggle to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to follow him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the undertaking she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story indirectly, as a form of parable. “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 businessmen and / the dark force.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a female character who experiences quarantine in the UK capital with a virtual stranger and during those days tells to him what occurred to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an offer from a figure who claimed to be the devil to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the nature of T is legion, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

Another blaze is present: a passionate, magnetic dedication to literature as a political act

Pacts and Consequences: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who does deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the protagonist herself is the devil? A third narrative comes finally to light—the account of a girl whose early years was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or suffer more of the same. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or remain a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately unveiled through a series of verses to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events

Numerous British audience members of Nordenhof's series books will think right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, shares parallels in that the resulting disaster and loss of life can be linked at in part to the dangerous trade-off of putting financial gain over human lives. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a multi-volume sequence, the fire aboard the ferry and the series of deceptive business deals that ended in mass murder are a sinister background element, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over everything that occurs. Certain individuals may doubt how far it is feasible to interpret this volume as a independent piece, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at present, is unknowable.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's project purely as written art, as truly innovative literature whose ethical and creative purpose are so profoundly interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive commitment to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this literary journey, wherever it goes.