The Devil Book Review: A Scandinavian Series Aflame with Intent
During the late night of April 7 1990, a catastrophic fire erupted aboard the ferry Scandinavian Star, a car and passenger ferry traveling between Frederikshavn and Oslo. Inadequate crew training along with jammed safety doors accelerated the propagation of the fire, while deadly hydrogen cyanide gas released from combusting materials led to the loss of 159 people. At first, the disaster was blamed to a passenger—a lorry driver with a record of arson. Since this suspect also died in the fire and was unable to defend the accusations, the full truth regarding the disaster remained hidden for many years. It wasn't until 2020 that a comprehensive documentary disclosed the blaze was probably set intentionally as part of an insurance fraud.
Nordenhof's Literary Sequence: A Glimpse
In the initial book of Asta Olivia Nordenhof's epic sequence, the preceding volume, an unidentified protagonist is traveling on a bus through the Danish capital when she notices an older man on the street. As the bus moves away, she experiences an “uncanny feeling” that she is carrying a part of him with her. Driven to retrace the route in pursuit of him, the narrator enters a landscape that is both unfamiliar and deeply familiar. She introduces readers to a couple named Maggie and Kurt, whose relationship is strained by the pressures of their troubled histories. In the final pages of that volume, it is implied that the source of Kurt's disaffection may originate in a disastrous investment made on his account by a individual referred to as T.
The Devil Book: A Unique Approach
The Devil Book opens with an lengthy poetic passage in which the narrator describes her struggle to write T's narrative. “In this second volume,” she states, “we were meant / to trace him / from childhood up until / the evening / when he sat anticipating for / the report that / the blaze / on the Scandinavian Star / had effectively been / ignited.” Burdened by the task she has set herself and disrupted by the global health crisis, she tackles the tale obliquely, as a form of allegory. “It occurred to me / that I / can do / whatever I want / so this / is my work / this is / for you / this is / an erotic thriller / about entrepreneurs and / the dark force.”
A narrative slowly unfolds of a female character who spends lockdown in the UK capital with a near-unknown person and during those weeks tells to him what occurred to her a ten years earlier, when she accepted an offer from a figure who claimed to be the devil to grant all her desires, so long as she didn't question his motives. As the elements of the two stories become more interwoven, we start to believe that they are one and the same—or at the very least that the identity of T is multiple, for there are devils all around.
Another blaze is present: a passionate, compelling commitment to literature as a form of activism
Deals with the Devil: A Literary Examination
Classic stories teach us that it is the dark figure who does bargains, not a divine being, and that we engage in them at our risk. But what if the narrator herself is the devil? A third narrative eventually emerges—the story of a girl whose childhood was scarred by mistreatment and who was placed in a mental health facility, under pressure to comply with societal norms or endure further harm. “[The devil] understands that in the scenario you've set for it, there are two outcomes: submit or stay a monster.” A alternative path is ultimately revealed through a collection of verses to the night that are also a rallying cry against the influences of wealth and power.
Connections and Interpretations: From Fiction to Reality
Numerous UK readers of the author's series books will think right away of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, which, though unintentional in origin, shares similarities in that the ensuing tragedy and fatalities can be attributed at least partly to the devil's bargain of prioritizing financial gain over people. In these first two volumes of what is projected to be a seven-book sequence, the fire aboard the ferry and the chain of deceptive transactions that culminated in mass murder are a sinister background element, revealing themselves only in fleeting glimpses of detail or implication yet projecting a growing influence over everything that occurs. Some readers may question how far it is feasible to interpret The Devil Book as a stand-alone work, when its purpose and significance are so deeply bound into a larger narrative whose ultimate shape, at present, is unknowable.
Experimental Writing: Art and Morality Intertwined
Some individuals—and I include myself as one of them—who will fall in love with the author's endeavor purely as written art, as truly innovative writing whose moral and creative intent are so profoundly entwined as to make them inseparable. “Write poems / for we need / that too.” There is another fire here: an intense, magnetic devotion to writing as a political act. I will persist to pursue this literary journey, wherever it goes.
