Animal Money by Michael Cisco | BOOK REVIEW

“Animal Money” by Michael Cisco

Published by Lazy Fascist Press
Paperback, 780 pages
ISBN: 1621052125

Today’s episode is also available on:

Sections
00:00 Intro
00:57 Gratitude, Updates, Plans
03:38 Finding Animal Money
05:30 Who the Hell is Michael Cisco?
07:33 Lazy Fascist Press
09:41 Outline and Structure
11:46 Plot…?
17:47 (In)visible Hands
20:35 Economic Mysticism
26:07 /r/AntiWork, A Novel Reading of Animal Money
31:15 Genre & Influence
38:16 Cover Art
40:01 The Human Cost
46:00 You Owe Me a Bird
51:25 End Notes

Readings from p. 16, 20, 27, 105, 110, 111, 114, 115, 171, 483, 502, 536, 537, 635, 765, 770

Secondary Resources:

ANCHOR.FM:

#MichaelCisco #AnimalMoney #TheDivinityStudent #JeffVandermeer #ThomasLigotti #AmericanLiterature #WeirdLit #BookReview #BookAnalysis #BookTube #BookTok #Bookstagram

[matthieufernandez]

I quit academia around the time of the pandemic, and somehow grew disillusioned in recent years. No one at the university was interested in the literature I wanted to research, and I consequently nearly stopped reading and writing.

Your videos are re-animating my love of literature. Thank you.

[codylakin]

I got to meet Michael Cisco at StokerCon in 2024, not long after I finished PEST, the first book I’ve read from him. Absolutely one of my favorite books I’ve ever read—incredibly disorienting, yet also deeply emotional, and of course weirder than anything I’d ever read before it—and it meant a lot to get to tell Cisco what the book meant to me, and for him to be so perceptive and seem to generously delight in the conversation.

I’ve since read two more of his. I’d LOVE to see a discussion this thoughtful, fun, and in depth for any of his other books, but especially UNLANGUAGE.

I’m not gonna watch this whole thing until I get to Animal Money, which will be soon. But I love what I’ve seen so far! And I love that the video before this is Krasznahorkai—instant subscribe 😁

[RobertGasperson]

I found your video on animal money last week. I’ve be deep in the language of this book for days and I’m only on page 50. It’s so dense and interesting. I’m so surprised I can’t find any other videos of anyone else talking about it.

[petie]

Another excellent video that has inspired me to read something else! Loving your work!

[cmmosher]

Well commenting for the algorithm here but you have sold me on the novel. It sounds like the philosophical trolling that makes Lynch films fun. I hope you keep on posting because this was a fun video.

[ledsnipe]

Never been so happy to come across a video. Haven't read this one yet, but the Narrator is one of my all time favourite novels.

[weirdchristmasweirdchristm]

Great stuff! Anything to further Cisco's readership is great, and it's a huge plus when done so well! :) You've also made me pick up Melancholy of Resistance, so thanks for that! I'll be looking forward to whatever's next.

[shelf-regulatingsystem]

Good to see more deep dives on BookTube. Have had this one staring angrily unread from my shelves for years. Going to read it, come back to this video and make it your fault when I don't understand it

[Kierkagaard]

That was a great video! Glad to have found you're stuff!

[TheMadmonica]

Aaaahhh, this sounds so intriguing!! I missed out this wonderful book.

Many thanks for this. I started the novel yesterday, and upon reaching p. 28 wondered if the rest would be worth the time and intellectual energy the novel demands. I then stumbled upon your review, which inspires me to gird my loins and press on.

[KulchurKat]

Another great booktube deep dive, Seth. I’m really enjoying your channel. And if this episode is anything to go by, I’m especially excited about the literary territory you plan to explore - away from the Twentieth Century baggy behemoths of American Lit - and to throw a spotlight on some compelling outliers.
Cisco is also a masterful short story writer as well; his ‘Genius of Assassins’ in Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s exhaustive anthology, The Weird, is one of the best things in there.

[asormadeira]

AMAZING video again man, keep it up!!

[andreceiving]

This video is the exact type of discussion I wanted after finishing this amazing novel, thank you! I'm already growing my reading list from your channel, but what do we have to do to get a video on Against the Day or any of the Flann O'Brien novels?

[ledsnipe]

And in response to you wanting the divinity student, it is a part of "the San veneficio cannon, and contains that and the sequel "the golum". I believe that's still in print and quite cheap

[ayarezk]

I started it last night and can't put it down! The complexity of the book has not made it unenjoyable to me so far, something that I can't say for Gravity's Rainbow, since you brought it up. I got slight vibes of the Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem.

[Rhizzome]

I’m currently halfway through this novel and after loving it for the first few hundred pages, I’m starting to find myself now entering a sort of love-hate kind of mood with it (which is more a comment on my experience and expectations than some sort of essentialist comment on the novel itself, but still). I think the thing is that I want more of the substance of the novel’s themes and perhaps less of the back-and-forth kind of ‘antics’ of the novel, which I do enjoy, but I think I was expecting (or hoping for) the prose of these things to be a little more Pynchonian in its own way, where as instead I’m finding it a little more sci-fi in how it feels. Don’t get me wrong, it’s superbly written - I just think my expectations were skewed going into it. Will persevere, of course.

[michaelcisco]

This video is free. You owe me a video.

[Ali]

Have you read The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg? I think it would make a great video for the channel! One of my favourites!

[spinecrackers]

Fantastic discussion here. This has been sitting on my shelf for a while; probably time to get around to it. One of our first episodes actually was on The Divinity Student. Deep Dive Booktube Gang rise up.