Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Latest Review: A Danish Literary Sequence Burning with Purpose

During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating fire erupted aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness along with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas released from combusting materials caused the deaths of 159 individuals. At first, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of arson. Given that this individual too died in the fire and was not able to defend the accusations, the full facts about the disaster stayed concealed for a long time. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive investigation disclosed the fire was likely started deliberately as part of an fraud scheme.

Asta Olivia Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Series: A Glimpse

In the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unnamed narrator is traveling on a public transport through Copenhagen when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle drives away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a part of him with her. Driven to repeat the journey in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a landscape that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She presents readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their conflicted histories. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the source of the character's discontent may stem from a poor financial decision made on his behalf by a individual referred to as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Approach

The Devil Book begins with an lengthy prose poem in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's narrative. “Within this volume, two,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from youth up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she approaches the story indirectly, as a form of allegory. “I came to think / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A narrative gradually unfolds of a female character who spends quarantine in London with a virtual stranger and during those weeks relates to him what happened to her a ten years earlier, when she agreed to an proposal from a man who professed to be the evil entity to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his intentions. 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 multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.

Another blaze is present: an ardent, compelling commitment to writing as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who makes bargains, not God, and that we engage in them at our peril. But suppose the narrator herself is the devil? A third narrative comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose early years was marred by mistreatment and who spent time in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with societal norms or endure further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of outcomes: submit or remain a beast.” A alternative path is finally revealed through a collection of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the forces of wealth and power.

Parallels and Readings: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous UK readers of Nordenhof's series novels will think immediately of the London tower fire, which, though accidental in origin, shares similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these initial books of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire on board the ship and the chain of deceptive business deals that ended in mass murder are a sinister underlying element, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over everything that occurs. Certain readers may question how far it is feasible to read this volume as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and significance are so intricately tied into a broader whole whose ultimate shape, at present, is uncertain.

Innovative Prose: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined

Some individuals—and I count myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly experimental literature whose ethical and artistic purpose are so deeply interlinked as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, attractive devotion to the craft as a statement. I intend to continue to pursue this series, no matter where it goes.