“Djevelboka” by Asta Olivia Nordenhof – NRK Culture and entertainment

“Devil’s Book”. The title gives certain expectations. Will Vårherre also appear in Asta Olivia Nordenhof’s new novel?

No. Not directly.

The Danish author is not particularly concerned with heaven and hell in the Christian sense.

She cares much more about another, much bigger “religion”: capitalism. She links this to patriarchy, i.e. men’s power in society.

Is it possible to love under capitalism? is the burning question Nordenhof will explore.

She wants to show everyone that the money is everywhere. Also in our closest relationships. Between us. Money rules life. Love. Hate. And death. Often in ways we don’t see.

It is an original thought, and brilliantly solved. Full of wonderful energy, in a book that cares little about genres and more about ideas.

Especially the main character, a young woman who narrates in first person, is fresh and cool. She is filled with equal parts grief and rage, courage and despair, and an infectious resentment of everything that is wrong in the world.

Prostitute meets the devil

This story starts in 2008.

There is a financial crisis. In Denmark, the public must save money. It is called “reform”. Certain social benefits will be cut. Also those the first-person narrator in “Djevelboka” got before.

Now he is broke. To earn money, she becomes a prostitute. The job does something to her view of sex. On what it means to be worth something. She is already mentally ill from before. The job does not make her healthier.

In addition, she meets the devil (!). He comes as a customer, and takes her on a strange journey. There she has to choose between money and death.

Twelve years later, the world is in the midst of a pandemic. On another, equally strange journey, the woman decides to finally tell about the time she met the devil.

The story forms the longest part of “Djevelboka”. Other parts are poems about how the book came to be, about what it means to live and listen to, and poems filled with night thoughts. There will also be a visit to the hospital.

The point, Nordenhof argues throughout the book, is that capitalism has an enormous and direct impact on individuals.

But she says it indirectlyby showing one individual and her story.

Scandinavian Star

“Djevelboka” is the second book in what is planned to be a seven-volume work that revolves around the Scandinavian Star incident on 7 April 1990.

As Asta Olivia Nordenhof sees it, the most important thing is to know that someone turned money on the tragedy. But neither of the two volumes that have appeared in her Scandinavian Star series so far deals directly with the ship and the fire.

The first book, “Penger på lomma”, showed an aging couple in the Danish countryside. They struggled financially, partly because of a loss that was directly linked to the ferry fire.

The money affects the relationship. The love.

“Bred men!”

In the second book, Nordenhof had planned to write more about the businessman “T”, who she believes has something to do with the accident.

It didn’t turn out that way, she explains in the long poem that opens “Djevelboka”:

She strives for a long time. Considering writing about Christopher Columbus, but getting sick of reading about him.

Until it dawns on her that she has forgotten her motto!

Then everything comes loose.

The result is the story about when the devil took the prostitute on a trip, and about the time the woman went on another trip during the pandemic.

In addition, the story “The devil speaks from the madhouse”, about mental illness. About a broken childhood with a thirst for love that is never satisfied.

Because is it actually an illness that women laugh at? Could it be that the fault lies rather in society? In capitalism? And the patriarchy?

The energy near vibrates off the book pages. In the original image, Asta Olivia Nordenhof depicts how anxiety can act like a wild horse, or the devil like a prostitute.

Anyone who wants a book about Scandinavian Star-ulukka, will be confused and disappointed by “Djevelboka”.

Everyone else has a fresh and original story about money, power and sex waiting.

A little rough around the edges. But with a warm and beating heart that drowns out various petty objections about composition, or about where this book series is actually going.

As Asta Olivia Nordenhof says it herself: