Animal Money by Michael Cisco: A Review
The greatest economic cosmic horror story ever written.
POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD - Only read if you don’t care about this book or finished it already.
The phrase, “you need acid in order to understand this,” both irks me a fantastic amount yet has drawn me to some of my favourite pieces of media. Usually this means you’re in for some vague psychedelic imagery, saturated colour-correction and a hell of a lot of Eastern philosophy. These sorts of things appeal to anyone on any kind of psychedelic, however - the exploding lizards and absurd religious firearms found in Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain or the watery, shimmering soundscapes concocted by the likes of Sun Araw and Animal Collective are attractive and mesmerising while you’re high on just about anything (I should know). Acid, specifically, opens up pathways in the brain that cause fractalised and open thinking, and that particular characteristic is what earns Animal Money by Michael Cisco the, “psychedelic,” label. The plot requires such aerobic mental gymnastics to understand that, honestly, you might need to be somewhat high to tie everything together.
I’m not going to spend energy attempting to write out a complete analysis of this book, that’d take a few more rereadings and a House of Leaves-esque level of obsession. I might in the future however, because it might be worth mining this for all of its worth. Not to ruin the rest of the review by revealing a bias, but Animal Money has become my favourite novel of all time. I devoured it over the course of a month and shunned reading anything else for the entirety of its length (which may not seem odd, but this is coming from someone who’s ADHD brain allows her to read, but only if I switch books constantly). The closest and most obvious comparisons I could make are Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, The Recognitions by William Gaddis and maybe(?) 2666 by Roberto Bolaño; it’s dense, complex, long and absurd, with so many small episodic moments making up the bigger picture that, even if I were to technically spoil the ending for you, it wouldn’t ruin the reading experience in the slightest - it is almost impossible to list everything that happens in the book, but so many sections stick out, even on a first reading. The basic plot summary is: five economists come up with the idea of, “animal money,” at the same time, calamities of the conspiratorial, supernatural and scientifically improbable commence. Secret zoos within universities, flying vampire heads, time travel, spiritual communication with economists beyond-the-veil and communist aliens are all present, among many other weird and wonderful occurrences.
Cisco’s writing style is simultaneously accessible and brimming with neat tricks, it’s heavy in narrative whiplash but it’s always a welcome feeling. Jumping from character to character, sometimes naming themselves, most of the time not, weaving in and out and around the plot effortlessly and with such grace that you really have to pay attention in order to not get lost (and trust me, you’ll get lost; Cisco even has a character poke fun at you for doing so during a particularly challenging passage). Fourth-wall breaks, neat use of perspective, hiding details before slamming context into your face, and a ton of other stuff I really can’t mention because it’s so mind-blowing when you read it yourself. He’s also an absolute genius when it comes to descriptive writing - the phantasmagoric world of Animal Money is painted with wild and vibrant linguistic hues. The buildings of the International Economics Institute gleam with holy light, distant alien temples wither away into the mountains they’re perched on, fae-like bureaucratic gardens (not making this shit up) sprout off the page and fill your palms with cool grass. That’s not including some of the direst and, colloquially speaking, coolest images of apocalypse and worldwide terror I’ve ever read or seen. The rules of reality bend backwards and then some to bring this larger-than-life narrative to, well, life, which I get isn’t big news, like yeah Audrey, books can do that, but what Cisco has achieved here is remarkable, of the highest of high calibres, it’s a shining, ultraviolet sniper bullet straight to the forehead.1
And it isn’t all smoke and mirrors here, oh no, there’s gristly bits to chew on as well. Cisco poses some pretty important questions to our current economic landscape through the lens of revolutionary SuperAesop, a former humble pizza delivery driver, who is introduced early in the book and slowly takes over the narrative. SuperAesop is essentially a stand-in for the modern essential worker, except with a genuinely distinguishable narrative voice and character, and through the perils he encounters during the last few legs of the book, as well as the journey of the aforementioned five economists, (I believe) the book asks us to properly assess our situation. What is value? What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative money? Can anything, even ideas, be commodified into currency? What is the cost of genuinely revolutionary ideas? What is the cost of a human? And, if we can answer that question, isn’t that a sign that money might not be a good idea anymore?
Animal Money is a book that only comes a couple times in one’s lifetime, and I’m beyond happy we have writers like Cisco working today. In an age where reading is less important than ever, it’s stuff like this that genuinely excites me, it makes me jump out of bed in the morning and go, “oh boy, I can’t wait to see what [insert title] has in store for me today!” I can’t go over how many ideas I absolutely adore within the confines of this book in just one review, most would be enough for a lesser writer to coast on for a full 200 pages. But not Michael Cisco. The man hurls moral question after terrifying realisation after side-splittingly hilarious dialogue at you, then slaps you round the face and says, “Go! Make sense of it all!” And you try, and you probably fail, but you don’t care, because it’s so maddeningly fantastic anyway. Buy this goddamn book, give the man all of your money, because who knows, maybe if enough people read it, you won’t have to use it anymore.
“‘Cause your third eye’s just a fucking hole in your head.” - Lil Ugly Mane, Opposite Lanes