In the early hours of April 7 1990, a devastating blaze broke out on board the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew training combined with jammed fire doors aided the propagation of the fire, while deadly cyanide gas emitted from combusting laminates led to the loss of 159 individuals. Initially, the disaster was attributed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a history of fire-setting. Given that this suspect also died in the fire and was unable to defend himself, the complete facts about the disaster remained concealed for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive investigation revealed the fire was probably set intentionally as part of an fraud scheme.
Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star Sequence: A Glimpse
In the initial book of Nordenhof's Scandinavian Star sequence, Money to Burn, an unidentified narrator is traveling on a public transport through the Danish capital when she observes an elderly man on the street. As the bus drives away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is taking a part of him with her. Compelled to repeat the journey in pursuit of him, the character finds herself in a landscape that is both alien and strangely known. She presents us to Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the burdens of their troubled pasts. In the final pages of that book, it is implied that the root of Kurt's discontent may stem from a poor financial decision made on his behalf by a man referred to as T.
The Devil Book: An Unconventional Narrative Style
This second installment opens with an extended prose poem in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's story. “In this second volume,” she writes, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat waiting for / the report that / the fire / on the ferry / had successfully been / set.” Overwhelmed by the task she has set herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a form of parable. “It occurred to me / 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 devil.”
A tale gradually unfolds of a woman who experiences quarantine in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and over the course of those weeks tells to him what happened to her a decade earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a figure who claimed to be the evil entity to fulfill all her desires, so long as she didn't doubt his motives. As the threads of the dual narratives become more intertwined, we begin to believe that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces all around.
There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling dedication to writing as a form of activism
Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Examination
Literature instruct us that it is the dark figure who makes deals, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our peril. But what if the protagonist herself is the devil? A additional narrative comes finally to light—the story of a young woman whose childhood was marred by abuse and who was placed 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 set for it, there are two results: submit or remain a monster.” A third way out is finally unveiled through a series of poems to the darkness that are simultaneously a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.
Parallels and Interpretations: From Fiction to Real Events
Many UK readers of Nordenhof's series novels will think right away of the London tower tragedy, which, though accidental in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting disaster and fatalities can be attributed at in part to the dangerous trade-off of putting profit over people. In these first two books of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the blaze on board the ship and the chain of fraudulent transactions that ended in multiple deaths are a sinister background element, revealing themselves only in fleeting flashes of information or implication yet casting a deepening influence over everything that transpires. Some readers may question how much it is feasible to read this volume as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and significance are so intricately tied into a larger narrative whose final form, at this stage, is unknowable.
Experimental Writing: Ethics and Aesthetics Intertwined
There will be others—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as truly experimental literature whose moral and creative purpose are so deeply entwined as to make them inextricable. “Write poems / for we require / that too.” There is another fire here: a passionate, attractive commitment to writing as a political act. I intend to persist to follow this series, no matter where it leads.
