🔗 Share this article

During the early hours of the 7th of April 1990, a devastating blaze broke out aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, a passenger ferry operating between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Insufficient crew preparedness combined with malfunctioning fire doors accelerated the spread of the flames, while deadly cyanide gas released from combusting laminates caused the loss of 159 people. Initially, the tragedy was blamed to a traveler—a truck driver with a history of arson. Since this suspect also perished in the incident and was unable to defend the accusations, the complete truth regarding the disaster remained hidden for a long time. Only in 2020 that a comprehensive documentary revealed the blaze was likely started intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.

Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: An Overview

Within the initial book of Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified narrator is riding on a public transport through the Danish capital when she notices an elderly man on the sidewalk. As the bus drives away, she feels an “eerie sense” that she is taking a piece of him with her. Compelled to retrace the journey in search of him, the character enters a setting that is both unfamiliar and strangely known. She presents readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose connection is tested by the burdens of their troubled histories. In the concluding section of that volume, it is suggested that the source of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a poor financial decision made on his account by a man referred to as T.

The Devil Book: A Unique Narrative Style

The Devil Book opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the writer describes her challenge to compose T's story. “In this volume, two,” she writes, “we were meant / to follow him / from childhood up until / the night / when he sat anticipating for / the news that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / set.” Burdened by the task she has assigned herself and derailed by the global health crisis, she tackles the story obliquely, as a type 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 sensational story / about businessmen and / the devil.”

A tale slowly unfolds of a woman who experiences quarantine in London with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an proposal from a man who professed to be the devil to grant all her wishes, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the dual narratives become more interwoven, we begin to suspect that they are identical—or at minimum that the identity of T is multiple, for there are demonic forces everywhere.

There is another fire here: an ardent, compelling commitment to literature as a political act

Deals with the Devil: A Thematic Exploration

Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who does deals, not God, and that we enter into them at our peril. But what if the narrator herself is the malevolent force? 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 mental health facility, under pressure to comply with social expectations or suffer further harm. “[The devil] knows that in the scenario you've created for it, there are a pair of results: submit or remain a beast.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a collection of poems to the night that are simultaneously a call to arms against the influences of capital.

Connections and Interpretations: From Literature to Real Events

Numerous British readers of Nordenhof's series novels will reflect right away of the London tower fire, which, though unintentional in cause, bears similarities in that the resulting tragedy and fatalities can be linked at least partly to the dangerous trade-off of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is planned to be a multi-volume series, the fire on board the ship and the chain of fraudulent transactions that ended in multiple deaths are a sinister background element, showing themselves only in brief flashes of detail or inference yet projecting a growing shadow over all that transpires. Some individuals may question how much it is feasible to read The Devil Book as a independent work, when its purpose and meaning are so intricately bound into a broader narrative whose final form, at present, is uncertain.

Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined

There will be others—and I count myself as one of them—who will become enamored with Nordenhof's endeavor purely as written art, as truly experimental writing whose moral and artistic purpose are so profoundly entwined as to make them inextricable. “Compose verses / for we need / that too.” Another kind of blaze exists: a passionate, magnetic commitment to the craft as a statement. I intend to continue to follow this series, wherever it leads.