🔗 Share this article

In the late night of the 7th of April 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted on board the ferry Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate staff preparedness along with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the spread of the fire, while toxic cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates caused the loss of 159 people. At first, the tragedy was attributed to a passenger—a truck driver with a history of arson. Given that this suspect also died in the fire and was not able to refute himself, the complete truth regarding the disaster stayed concealed for many years. Only in 2020 that a detailed documentary disclosed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: 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 the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the vehicle moves away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Compelled to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both alien and strangely known. She presents readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is suggested that the root of the character's discontent may stem from a poor investment made on his behalf by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

This second installment begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator explains her challenge to write T's story. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were supposed / to trace him / from youth up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the ferry / had effectively been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the task she has assigned herself and disrupted by the pandemic, she tackles the tale indirectly, as a form of parable. “I came to think / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the devil.”

A tale slowly emerges of a woman who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those days relates to him what occurred to her a decade before, when she agreed to an offer from a man who professed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his intentions. As the elements of the two stories become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at the very least that the nature of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Literary Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who does 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 account of a girl whose childhood was marred by abuse and who was placed in a psychiatric hospital, under pressure to comply with social expectations or endure more of the same. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of results: surrender or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a collection of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of wealth and power.

Connections and Readings: From Literature to Reality

Numerous UK audience members of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star novels will think immediately of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, bears parallels in that the ensuing tragedy and loss of life can be linked at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing profit over people. In these first two books of what is projected to be a multi-volume series, the fire aboard the ferry and the chain of deceptive transactions that ended in mass murder are a sinister underlying presence, showing themselves only in brief glimpses of information or inference yet projecting a deepening influence over all that transpires. Certain individuals may question how much it is possible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone work, when its aim and significance are so deeply tied into a broader narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Fused

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's project purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose ethical and artistic intent are so deeply interlinked as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, magnetic commitment to the craft as a political act. I intend to continue to follow this series, wherever it leads.