Twist

“It was as if nobody existed there at all. Everywhere seemed fences. Signs for fences. The only moving people were gardeners and joggers who quickly disappeared amid the trees and the wires.”

The history of South Africa’s apartheid is most keenly felt through Anthony’s perception of its physical legacy. In this excerpt, he notices that there seem to be fences everywhere, dividing the city around him. This nation, supposed to be united after the fall of apartheid, still experiences separation. The legacy of apartheid is present, and McCann explores this through the visual imagery of South Africa rather than its laws.

“The light was snatched and inside and served with silver tongs. All the bellhops and waitstaff were Black. It surprised me that they didn’t seethe with resentment. The men wore waistcoats and bow ties. The women were in aprons. The place reeked of the past.”

Another aspect of the legacy of apartheid that Anthony notices is that the majority of service jobs are held by Black people. He wonders how they do not rage against the stratified social and economic system that seems to split the upper and lower classes by race. Even their uniforms seem to be a relic from the past to Anthony, their formality and stiffness presented in juxtaposition with seething “resentment.”

“But, I mean, seriously, shame on us all. I want to know why in the name of God people accept what’s happening to us. You know if the ocean was a bank, they’d have saved it a long time ago. You can tell people this stuff over and over, and they still deny it. It’s the dread of too much shit to do.”

Zanele is very vocal about the climate crisis in Twist and tries to frame her concerns in ways that capture the corruption of society around her. In this instance, she focuses on the destruction of the oceans and laments the lack of care that the majority of people show. She considers the greed that drives the ocean’s corruption and drives the point home by comparing the ocean to a bank. By doing this and asserting that this would lead to the protection of the oceans, she calls attention to the value society places on money.

“‘You just have to deal with the urge to breathe,’ he said. ‘After that you have to remind yourself to come up. That’s why you never dive alone. It’s too seductive. Down there you become something else altogether.’”

Diving is an important aspect of Twist, and McCann utilizes descriptive language to create a mystique around the activity. When Conway describes the draw of diving to Anthony, he describes it as being seductive and therefore deadly, as it can be hard to return to the surface. This not only characterizes diving and Conway himself: His attraction to danger develops him as an unpredictable character, willing to take risks.

“The thought returned to me as if on a swing. My son. Far away. I was supposed to catch it, but I misread the arc and it hit me squarely in the solar plexus.”

Throughout the novel, Anthony struggles with his feelings that he is not connected with his son, developing the theme of repairing personal disconnection. The pain he feels over their separation is severe and can be overwhelming. McCann describes Anthony’s feelings related to his son in physical terms, using the metaphor of a swing to explain the unexpected and severe blow while also connecting to a playground toy. In this excerpt, Anthony miscalculates, pushing the feelings down, and they instead strike him, making the pain both physical and emotional.

“When she got to the ocean floor, she said, she saw the most spectacular things—blind fish, sharks that glowed in the dark, sea anemones with eight-foot tentacles, sea squirts, shrimp, salpae, all manner of undersea beauty—but when she looked out into the narrow beam of murky light that the submersible shone into the depth, near the absolute bottom, she had seen a tiny piece of plastic floating.”

The tiny piece of plastic described in this excerpt represents the extent of the climate crisis and humanity’s propensity to pollute. Even in depths humans could never naturally see, the waste they produce plagues the natural world. Zanele juxtaposes this symbol with specific descriptions of the wonder of the natural world to emphasize the extent to which pollution impacts the world.

“We were like a stunned birds. We had flown into the glass. We had to check ourselves for damage. We stood up. The uncertainty hummed. We tried to brush ourselves off. We were all hitting refresh.”

McCann uses the simile of “stunned birds” after flying into a window to describe Anthony and others’ shock and anxiety when the internet collapses after the underwater cable breaks. He characterizes their feelings as those of shock at confronting an obstacle never believed to be a possibility. He then shifts to technological imagery with a reference to their attempts to hit the “refresh button,” underscoring the unthinking reliance on even the language of technology to develop the theme of The Fragility of Technological Dependency.

“Now here I was, sitting, waiting for another boat to take me elsewhere. So much of who we are is who we cannot be. We flatter ourselves when we think we can become something entirely new.”

Personal transformation is an important aspect of Anthony’s character development. In the beginning of the novel, Anthony believes that he cannot change, but over the course of Twist, under Conway’s influence, Anthony does change, committing to sobriety and re-establishing a connection with his son. By the end of the novel, Anthony is who he thought he could not be.

“Joseph Conrad rang in my head. Heart of Darkness had had its day for me. I had read it when I was hospitalized as a child. In Ireland it had served as a perfect colonial portrait of the British—the horror had always been theirs, not ours.”

McCann references many novels in Twist, and the connection to Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad connects the events of the novel to the theme of The Legacy of European Colonialism. As an Irishman, Anthony grew up with the legacy of British occupation, and in Twist, remembers the novel and how it portrayed British colonialism in Africa. Not only can he make a connection with his own nation, but he also continues to see signs of it in the present.

“The next afternoon he came into my room to tell me that my mother had passed away. It is always a shock for a child to see a parent cry. We somehow think that they are far beyond feeling, though of course they never really are.”

As Anthony reflects on his relationship with his own father, he comes to better understand who he is as a father. He once felt that his father could not feel emotions, and now that he is a father himself, he knows that this is not true. Just like his own father felt tragedy and despair, so too does Anthony.

“They moved among the propulsion engines, the water pipes, the boilers, the generator, the filters, the fuel strainers. There was something human about it too: the mysterious workings of the viscera, the liver, the kidneys, the heart.”

McCann uses descriptive language to develop a metaphor that compares the ship to a human body. He describes the different parts of the ship as being organs, interconnected and playing an important role in the health of the entire ship. Anthony compares his own lack of knowledge of human organs to his lack of knowledge of the ship’s machinery. This adds to Anthony’s perception of the ship as mysterious, dangerous, and unknown.

“The phone rang again. He may not have been in full opposition to the technical, but I was convinced, watching him, that he was listening more to the sea than to the voices on the other end of the line.”

Throughout the novel, Anthony pays close attention to Conway, finding him to be a mysterious figure. He focuses on the irony of Conway’s dislike of technology and his job. Though he works to ensure that technology functions, he favors nature, foreshadowing his changed role at the end of the novel. McCann characterizes this part of Conway’s identity by showing how, even at the height of his work, his thoughts are elsewhere.

“I was hooked on the plot of the waves. The hours passed as hours pass: they were sweeter hours than had passed me by for quite a while. I could feel a pulse of life returning.”

With so much of Twist occurring at sea, McCann uses descriptive language to connect the environment of the ocean to the personal development of the characters. Anthony describes the waves as having a plot, and his following of this plot helps bring him peace. The more he connects with the ocean, the more he feels as though his life changes, and he is able to become a new man.

“Here we were, under the leaking roof of the world. What would happen if we were to leave the cable alone? If we didn’t fuse the lines? If there was no repair at all? If we just allowed ourselves to drift? The rains, the floods, the underwater earthquakes, the landslides. The revenge of the host.”

Climate change is a central concern to many of the characters in the novel, and to increase the severity of the threat, McCann describes nature as a powerful force. In this excerpt, nature is characterized as a vengeful force, a “host,” specifically with water clearing away the cables. Water often symbolizes rebirth and new beginnings, capturing Conway’s own desire to disconnect the world from the cables.

“It wasn’t comfortable by any means, but there was a beauty in it, the shatterwork of the lightning where the silver seemed to pull itself up from the ocean itself. And then there was the distant noise of the thunder, the elongated cracks and their contrapuntal echo around the ship, as if it had been designed only for us, which, in a way, it was. Thunder at sea can help you believe all the myths.”

The sensory imagery that McCann uses in Anthony’s descriptions of the sea makes a connection between the characters, plot, and nature. In this excerpt, the power of the storm combines with the power of the sea to astonish Anthony. The descriptions of the lightning emerging from the ocean, and the cacophony of noises from the storm, create an otherworldly atmosphere. Anthony reflects this sentiment by arguing that the experience makes him believe in old myths, drawing a reference to the gods in ancient myths.

“These sort of things, of course, happen all over the world, in places far away, every day, and we hear nothing of them, but every now and then one of them reaches into the back of our brains and lands a concussive blow.”

When the attack on Zanele occurs, Anthony notes the “concussive blow” it sends across the globe, connecting it to their current mission of fixing the cables. He acknowledges that such acts of violence occur all the time, everywhere, but some hit deeper. Not only is the violence a tragedy but it also highlights the fact that Conway is not there to protect her and help her heal. This amplifies the pain and disconnection Conway feels.

“The clock hands on the wall circled as if they wanted to dig themselves into the plaster, create a hole, burrow away, escape.”

McCann frequently uses figurative language in Twist, bringing the world around Anthony to life and using descriptive language to make his feelings palpable. In this excerpt, McCann anthropomorphizes the hands of the clock. He describes them as wanting to dig through the wall and escape, as if they were sentient. Anthony describes the clock in this manner as he waits to hear back from the company in Brussels after Conway disappears, capturing the tension and anxiety he feels.

“The same corporations who controlled the cables controlled the information too. It was a well-dressed shell game. All the myopia. All the greed. A new cable would make billions of dollars for its owners. It was also quite possible that the information within was owned or tapped, or both. The old colonialism was dressed up in a tube. It snaked the floors of our unsilent seas.”

Though the underwater cables run through international waters, Anthony sees them as a symbol of the legacy of European colonialism. Despite the fact that they connect the world, they disproportionately benefit the wealthy powers of the world. Not only do companies in Europe and the United States profit from the use of the cables by different nations but they also likely steal information from them. The novel represents data mining as just another form of theft by the powerful.

“The greed, the mining, the plunder. All the roads gouged into the forests all over Africa. All the stories that we had ignored down through the years. Gold. Bauxite. Aluminum. Cobalt and copper. Vermiculite. Diamonds. Uranium from the Congo. I was reminded of Zanele and her four billion tons of industrial waste. Maybe it was only women who stayed focused on these things. The true stories of our times. The way the land gets taken. The stripping down. The leaving. The poisoning.”

As Anthony contemplates the environmental destruction of Africa for the benefit of former colonial powers and wealthy nations, he makes a connection to both climate change and gender. He considers Veliane’s awareness of the crisis as well as Zanele’s climate-focused production of Godot. His realization that women are more conscious of the theft and abuse of land connects themes of misogyny and the view of women as resources to be exploited to the climate crisis.

“The virus had brought a quietness to the streets, but the worst of the lockdown had already passed. It was a good time for loners. The virus gave him a helpful distance. The land had a poisoned aspect: it held our illness. But the sea was deemed free from it, and the small boats were allowed out into the harbor and beyond.”

Once again, the ocean is described with imagery that helps capture Anthony’s feelings. In this case, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Anthony feels trapped on land, surrounded by the virus and death. Movement is restricted, and strict rules are put in place. However, the ocean enjoys freedom and unrestricted movement. This description further solidifies the connection between freedom and water established by Conway’s view of diving.

“His simple wooden boat. His primitive methods. A flash of fish on the end of his spear. He creates no room for suspicion. Anyone watching him would think he was no more or less skilled than any of the other locals who fish the same way.”

Conway is often characterized as a mysterious figure who lives on the edges of society. This proves to be an advantage for him, allowing him to disappear and blend into a new community. He is able to hide in Egypt by mimicking those around him, connecting to them and their surroundings through experience rather than research. He demonstrates how connection can be achieved while being disconnected from the virtual world and its resources.

“There was my own theory of the broken heart, the take tsubo, which had surfaced in my mind on the very first day I met him. There was the heroic element of it too, as if he was some sort of Hayduke incarnation, or a Letzte, a millennial portrait. A new mythological figure to hand on to, the destruction as an artful creation.”

An unusual aspect of Twist is that Conway’s actions can only be fictionalized by Anthony, who sees him as some kind of mythical figure after his destruction of the cables in Egypt. It is the culmination of Conway’s mystique and Anthony’s inability to understand him. Even with all the time he spent with Conway, Anthony can never understand him and is forced to resort to constructing Conway in his own mind.

“Or he might have descended rather than going upward, a reverse Icarus, no sun but the dark, another myth burning in the wrong direction.”

McCann continues with the mythological references by characterizing Conway as a “reverse Icarus.” Icarus flew too close to the sun, which melted the wax in his wings, causing him to plummet to his death. It was hubris that led to Icarus’s fall. By describing Conway as a reverse Icarus, descending into the depths, McCann characterizes him as a foil to Icarus, acting not out of hubris but out of confidence, sure that he was in the right place, doing the right thing.