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In the late night of April 7 1990, a devastating fire erupted aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew training along with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the flames, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas emitted from burning laminates led to the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a record of fire-setting. Since this individual also perished in the incident and was not able to refute the accusations, the complete facts regarding the event stayed concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the fire was likely set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.

Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse

Within the initial book of Nordenhof's epic series, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an older man on the street. As the bus drives away, she feels an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the route in search of him, the narrator finds herself in a setting that is both alien and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their troubled pasts. In the concluding section of that book, it is implied that the root of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a poor financial decision made on his account by a individual known as T.

The Devil Book: An Unconventional Approach

This second installment begins with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer describes her challenge to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the Scandinavian Star / had successfully been / ignited.” Overwhelmed by the undertaking she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story indirectly, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / anything I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an sensational story / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”

A tale gradually unfolds of a woman who spends quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those days tells to him what occurred to her a decade earlier, when she agreed to an offer 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 threads of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to suspect that they are one and the same—or at minimum that the identity of T is legion, for there are devils everywhere.

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

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination

Classic stories instruct us that it is the devil who does deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our risk. But what if the protagonist herself is the malevolent force? A additional storyline eventually emerges—the account of a young woman whose early years was scarred by abuse and who spent time in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with societal norms or endure further harm. “[This entity] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of outcomes: surrender or remain a monster.” A alternative path is finally unveiled through a series of verses to the night that are also a call to arms against the forces of capital.

Parallels and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Many UK audience members of Nordenhof's series books will reflect right away of the Grenfell Tower fire, which, though unintentional in origin, bears similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and fatalities can be linked at in part to the devil's bargain of putting financial gain over human lives. In these initial volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume sequence, the blaze aboard the ship and the series of fraudulent transactions that culminated in multiple deaths are a sinister underlying presence, showing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of information or inference yet casting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Certain individuals may question how much it is feasible to interpret this volume as a stand-alone work, when its aim and meaning are so deeply tied into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at this stage, 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 the author's project purely as written art, as truly experimental literature whose ethical and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we need / that as well.” There is another fire here: an intense, magnetic devotion to writing as a political act. I will persist to pursue this series, no matter where it leads.