What do you think?
Rate this book
The Biography of Manuel #1
Beyond Life
Beyond Life is yet another wholly original work from Virginia writer James Branch Cabell. It's an imagined conversation between John Charteris, a successful author, and a young editor. They sit in a library lined with books categorized as unwritten masterpieces or intended editions--a wry commentary on the business of publishing by one of America's overlooked masters. The two discuss writers and writing, especially those who published in the early 20th century and the demands of the market. Anyone interested in the act of writing and publishing will find an amusing and thought-provoking discussion in Beyond Life. JAMES BRANCH CABELL, a native of Richmond, Virginia, wrote more than fifty books. He is best known for his novel Jurgen, which he wrote in 1919, and his octodecalogy, Biography of the Life of Manuel, which features the mythical world of Poictesme and the castle Storisende. His writing features many anagrams, puns, and wordplay, features that have made him a cult figure to many readers. The Virginia Commonwealth University established the James Branch Cabell Library in 1970.
380 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1919
3 people are currently reading
516 people want to read
About the author
James Branch Cabell
240 books125 followersJames Branch Cabell was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 24, 2014
I read most of James Branch Cabell's Beyond Life last night. I bought this book years ago because I really admire Cabell's fantasy, his incredible vocabulary, and this was the limited edition of the Storisende collection of his work...I just couldn't pass it up.
Cabell's vocabulary is immense, not to mention that he was writing this in 1919 and some of his style is from a time before that. Even so, I eventually had to resort to pulling the dictionary off the shelf to refer to time and again, and it's a rare book that I have to do that for. It's an even rarer book that I'm willing to do it for and not, instead, just stop reading.
It's also the first book I've ever had to "cut the pages" for. I knew about the practice: when you bought a book new before or around the turn of last century, often the ends of the pages were still in the "loops" of paper as they were bound into the book, and had not been sliced off by an automatic cutter. The first thing a reader has to do to read the book is take a letter opener or knife and separate the pages. The tactile sensation of engaging in this practice was almost indescrible--a combination of nostalgia (for a time when I have no reason to feel nostalgic for) or time-travel, so in contrast with today's world of everything being as convenient as possible for the consumer.
The book itself is a series of essays about why a writer writes what they write, or at least, through Cabell's thinly veiled stand-in Charteris, what authors should write and why. He makes a big case against the standing literary excitement of the day, realism, saying that it is impossible for a writer to truly reflect the "reality" of life (there was a line about the writer needing to put a desk on the corner of main street rather than secluding themselves in an office), and that instead the writer should not write about people "as they are, but as they ought to be."
As he danced around this theme, he brings in the importance of alcohol to the creative imagination, using as exemplers such writers as Marlowe, Congreve, and Sheridan--who all "died" (figuratively as artists or literally) at 29, after leaving most depraved lives, but creating some amazing literature. It's an ingenious point, and I'm not entirely sure that Cabell wasn't putting his tongue into his cheek to tweak the puritanism of Prohibition, which he obviously didn't care for. The funny thing about it, though, is that Cabell didn't really start writing novels until after 29, so as an example of this, he fails utterely.
Cabell's vocabulary is immense, not to mention that he was writing this in 1919 and some of his style is from a time before that. Even so, I eventually had to resort to pulling the dictionary off the shelf to refer to time and again, and it's a rare book that I have to do that for. It's an even rarer book that I'm willing to do it for and not, instead, just stop reading.
It's also the first book I've ever had to "cut the pages" for. I knew about the practice: when you bought a book new before or around the turn of last century, often the ends of the pages were still in the "loops" of paper as they were bound into the book, and had not been sliced off by an automatic cutter. The first thing a reader has to do to read the book is take a letter opener or knife and separate the pages. The tactile sensation of engaging in this practice was almost indescrible--a combination of nostalgia (for a time when I have no reason to feel nostalgic for) or time-travel, so in contrast with today's world of everything being as convenient as possible for the consumer.
The book itself is a series of essays about why a writer writes what they write, or at least, through Cabell's thinly veiled stand-in Charteris, what authors should write and why. He makes a big case against the standing literary excitement of the day, realism, saying that it is impossible for a writer to truly reflect the "reality" of life (there was a line about the writer needing to put a desk on the corner of main street rather than secluding themselves in an office), and that instead the writer should not write about people "as they are, but as they ought to be."
As he danced around this theme, he brings in the importance of alcohol to the creative imagination, using as exemplers such writers as Marlowe, Congreve, and Sheridan--who all "died" (figuratively as artists or literally) at 29, after leaving most depraved lives, but creating some amazing literature. It's an ingenious point, and I'm not entirely sure that Cabell wasn't putting his tongue into his cheek to tweak the puritanism of Prohibition, which he obviously didn't care for. The funny thing about it, though, is that Cabell didn't really start writing novels until after 29, so as an example of this, he fails utterely.
August 28, 2025
Continuing my reread of the Biography of Manuel, now in hardcopy with this lovely leatherette Modern Library edition from 1923.
Pratchett must have read Cabell. This all boils down to that famous bit from the Hogfather about belief. But Cabells version can make grown men weep :D .
First Read [5/5]
"What is man, that his welfare be considered?-an ape who chatters to himself of kinship with the archangels while filthily he digs for groundnuts..."
Wow... that was uplifting and depressing in equal measure. With a frame of fiction, the opinions expressed being attributed to John Charteris a recurring fictional author in various of Cabells works. But once inside the frame we have a non-fiction examination of realism vs romanticism which morphs and expands until all of human endeavour is weighted in the balance.
I'm not a fan of non-fiction much but as usual Cabells beautiful wordplay and esoteric knowledge, his sarcasm and intelligence, honesty and blatant lies all add to an essay which is eminently readable albeit very highbrow.
Aswell as occasionally confusing on a sentence basis due to Cabells erudition, it also gets pretty confused on an idea basis. I found it quite jumbled as to which side Cabell was promoting at various times but that wasn't entirely my fault. Ultimately the author doesn't have any more answers than the rest of us regarding the point of life or art but he does ask beautiful questions which is quite enough.
If you want to know if this book is for you just check out some of my updates, i really wanted to just quote every line.
"Yet more clearly do I perceive this same man is a maimed god... He is under penalty condemned to compute eternity with false weights and to estimate infinity with a yardstick; and he very often does it..."
Read
April 1, 2023I hesitate to call this book 'great', not because it's largely composed of idiosyncratic commentary on authors now forgotten, but because part of that commentary is a deep scepticism of the very idea of greatness - the observation being made that many acknowledged classics are best enjoyed from a respectful distance. But then, in amongst the insistence on the importance of a romantic outlook, on painting life not as it is but as it ought to be, on the idea that it is solely by believing himself but a little below the cherubim that man has become on the whole distinctly preferable to the chimpanzee - Cabell also acknowledges the utter subjectivity of it all. For nobody but yourself can tell you what books you'll enjoy, and even a mediocre, forgotten book may very easily have more of an impact on more people than the highest work of genius. And then, of course, the critics are so often wrong, those of them who are successful writers no less than others (many examples are adduced). Even Cabell himself, in listing (often hilariously) the writers of his day who will not endure, errs when he includes Conan Doyle.
Elsewhere, though...this book includes the best writing on Christopher Marlowe which I've ever read, and without directly addressing the nonsense, summarises exactly why that lunatic genius and Shakespeare can't have been the same person. The observation that Jesus and Cinderella have remarkably similar biographies is a gem. And given one of the few writers I consider peer to Cabell is Arthur Machen, seeing the former's thoughts on "that uncanny genius" is a joy.
I have talked here about what Cabell writes, but as ever with Cabell, it's not that simple. The book is loosely framed as a Socratic dialogue, in which the narrator visits John Charteris (I believe a character who appears in other books I've not yet read as a Cabell stand-in) in his home, a home which somehow holds a library reminiscent of that in Dream's kingdom as described by Neil Gaiman - yet even richer in its holdings. Here, the narrator gets his ear bent for eight chapters, and then in the conclusion finally gets a word in edgeways - where he is far from fully agreeing with the talkative Charteris. At least part of which is because he misses Charteris' point entirely, and thinks that only the writing of books is being discussed. In fact (not that Charteris entirely trusts facts), this is Charteris following his own advice, and discussing the eternal verities of life through a symbol. For along the way we have touched on so much - the sense adults have that really they're only pretending, the bonds of convention, the yearning for an indistinct sense of the future and/or past...on all of which Cabell is as wise, wistful and wry as ever.
There's an astonishing amount here. The idea Morrison and Moore have championed of late, that it is precisely through our fictions that we have ever made much of our 'real' world (and Moore at least is aware of Cabell); Lovecraft's terror at the nature of reality, encompassed and escaped; even an astonishing moment where the book seems to elude time itself, as Charteris complains (in 1925) about the ending of The Magnificent Ambersons, and only belatedly do you realise that he means the book. And yet - he doesn't just mean the book, does he? He never does.
Elsewhere, though...this book includes the best writing on Christopher Marlowe which I've ever read, and without directly addressing the nonsense, summarises exactly why that lunatic genius and Shakespeare can't have been the same person. The observation that Jesus and Cinderella have remarkably similar biographies is a gem. And given one of the few writers I consider peer to Cabell is Arthur Machen, seeing the former's thoughts on "that uncanny genius" is a joy.
I have talked here about what Cabell writes, but as ever with Cabell, it's not that simple. The book is loosely framed as a Socratic dialogue, in which the narrator visits John Charteris (I believe a character who appears in other books I've not yet read as a Cabell stand-in) in his home, a home which somehow holds a library reminiscent of that in Dream's kingdom as described by Neil Gaiman - yet even richer in its holdings. Here, the narrator gets his ear bent for eight chapters, and then in the conclusion finally gets a word in edgeways - where he is far from fully agreeing with the talkative Charteris. At least part of which is because he misses Charteris' point entirely, and thinks that only the writing of books is being discussed. In fact (not that Charteris entirely trusts facts), this is Charteris following his own advice, and discussing the eternal verities of life through a symbol. For along the way we have touched on so much - the sense adults have that really they're only pretending, the bonds of convention, the yearning for an indistinct sense of the future and/or past...on all of which Cabell is as wise, wistful and wry as ever.
There's an astonishing amount here. The idea Morrison and Moore have championed of late, that it is precisely through our fictions that we have ever made much of our 'real' world (and Moore at least is aware of Cabell); Lovecraft's terror at the nature of reality, encompassed and escaped; even an astonishing moment where the book seems to elude time itself, as Charteris complains (in 1925) about the ending of The Magnificent Ambersons, and only belatedly do you realise that he means the book. And yet - he doesn't just mean the book, does he? He never does.
July 29, 2011
James Branch Cabell (rhymes with rabble) is in my opinion the single most underrated great American writer. This is a book length rumination of aesthetics and theology. He argues among other things that Christianity must be true because it posses the perfect story and he is being only slightly ironic. One should read the novels (start with Jurgen) first.
February 16, 2022
Sublime. Is it a tease or a testament? Cher Maitre opines that a "pop" novel respects the limitations of its readers. The root of all evil is not money, he adds, it's the lack of imagination. Crescendo: The story of Christ is the story of Cinderella in more impressive terms.
Literature, love, life viewed with heavenly jeux d'esprit.
Literature, love, life viewed with heavenly jeux d'esprit.
May 26, 2015
A brilliant meta-fictional discussion about the value of romance and imagination in literature and in life. Filled with innumerable bon mots - I particularly liked the bit about evolution being sparked by a fish's literally insane desire to live out of the water. My first visit to Poictesme (or, at least, related realms), but certainly not my last.
March 17, 2015
Unlike Jurgen, The Silver Stallion and Figures of Earth, Cabell's great fantasy novels, this is a series of wise essays with a philosophy that underpins all Cabell's books. Cabell's prose style may a bit florid for today's tastes, but I still think he's a terrific read. There's never been anyone like him, and I've found him a huge inspiration in my own work. My first fantasy novel, Not Very Arthurian, will be dedicated to him.
November 6, 2020
In the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft and J.L. Borges, James Branch Cabell has his interlocutors discuss literature, both real and imagined. Clever--a reward for erudition.
I believe I picked this up at a used bookstore in Cambridge, MA while on a visit from New York to my old college chum and Loose Hall dormitory neighbor from Grinnell College, Rick Strong, in Allston, MA.
I believe I picked this up at a used bookstore in Cambridge, MA while on a visit from New York to my old college chum and Loose Hall dormitory neighbor from Grinnell College, Rick Strong, in Allston, MA.
July 20, 2012
If Cabell restrained his urge to discuss authors and playwrights I don't care about, and stuck to snarky philosophizing, this would be a 5.
August 25, 2024
James Branch Cabell published Beyond Life in 1919, in the same year as Jurgen, which was the first of several pure fantasies written in Cabell's mid-career. Beyond Life was republished in 1929 as the first book in a single 18-volume fantasy series, The Biography of the Life of Manuel—Cabell had reorganized almost all his earlier writing into this series, with minor editing to make it all fit together. Beyond Life is not a fantasy, but rather an account of Cabell's philosophy of life and literature.
The book consists of a conversation between one character in the first person, presumably Cabell himself, and another Cabell alter-ego, John Charteris. Cabell's writing is subtle, complex, and perhaps a bit antiquated in style. At the start of the book, Cabell explains his key point,
Romance is the force, or rather the dream, by which humankind is made better; romance is effectively another name for the divine plan. Cabell quotes John Milton's Areopagitica, "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life" (p.14). The title of the book expresses the spirit of romance, a life beyond life. Romance is the demiurge, the god of Cabell's universe. Cabell reiterates at the end of the book,
Cabell continues,
Thus, religion itself is an expression of the romantic impulse. Cabell writes,
In retrospect I can see that The Biography of the Life of Manuel has biblical characteristics. The origin and development of Manuel the Redeemer is recounted in Figures of Earth; The Silver Stallion thereafter chronicles the activities of Manuel's disciples, as it were, after his death; Jurgen might be a Cabellian equivalent of St. Paul. Beyond Life isn't exactly a Genesis, although it does explain the origin and motivation of The Biography of the Life of Manuel. The correspondence is inexact, but we can detect Cabell using the Bible as a model for his own great work of romance.
Cabell is beautifully quotable. Let me finish with two more examples to further emphasize the key argument in the book:
Although Beyond Life itself is not fantasy, to understand what Cabell is getting at in his great fantasies, you need to read it. It's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees among Cabell's witty, elegant prose and erudite discussions of literature. In essence, however, Beyond Life is a passionate and compelling defense of life as the imitation of art, rather than art as the imitation of life.
The book consists of a conversation between one character in the first person, presumably Cabell himself, and another Cabell alter-ego, John Charteris. Cabell's writing is subtle, complex, and perhaps a bit antiquated in style. At the start of the book, Cabell explains his key point,
His [Charteris'] notion, as I followed him, was that romance controlled the minds of men; and by creating force-producing illusions, furthered the world's betterment with the forces thus brought into being: so that each generation of naturally inert mortals was propelled toward a higher sphere and manner of living, by the might of each generation's ignorance and prejudices and follies and stupidities, beneficently directed. (pp. 16-17)
Romance is the force, or rather the dream, by which humankind is made better; romance is effectively another name for the divine plan. Cabell quotes John Milton's Areopagitica, "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life" (p.14). The title of the book expresses the spirit of romance, a life beyond life. Romance is the demiurge, the god of Cabell's universe. Cabell reiterates at the end of the book,
And romance tricks him [the human being], but not too his harm. For, be it remembered that man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams. Romance it is undoubtedly who whispers to every man that life is not a blind and aimless business, not all a hopeless waste and confusion: and that his existence is a pageant (appreciably observed by divine spectators), and that he is strong and excellent and wise: and to romance he listens, willing and thrice willing to be cheated by the honeyed fiction. The things of which romance assures him are very far from true: yet it is solely by believing himself a creature but little lower than the cherubim that man had by interminable small degrees become, upon the whole, distinctly superior to the chimpanzee. (p. 311)
Cabell continues,
And it is this will that stirs in us to have the creatures of earth and the affairs of earth, not as they are, but "as they ought to be," which we call romance. But when we note how visibly it sways all life we perceive that we are talking about God. (p. 312)
Thus, religion itself is an expression of the romantic impulse. Cabell writes,
So I spoke of Christianity as a product of romance, and as the masterpiece of romance.... the Bible is past doubt the boldest and most splendid example of pure romance contrived by human ingenuity. But if it all really happened—if one great Author did in point of fact shape the tale thus, employing men and women in the place of printed words—it very overwhelmingly proves that our world is swayed by a Romancer of incalculable skill and imagination. And that the truth is this, precisely is—again precisely—what I have been contending from the start. (p.139)
In retrospect I can see that The Biography of the Life of Manuel has biblical characteristics. The origin and development of Manuel the Redeemer is recounted in Figures of Earth; The Silver Stallion thereafter chronicles the activities of Manuel's disciples, as it were, after his death; Jurgen might be a Cabellian equivalent of St. Paul. Beyond Life isn't exactly a Genesis, although it does explain the origin and motivation of The Biography of the Life of Manuel. The correspondence is inexact, but we can detect Cabell using the Bible as a model for his own great work of romance.
Cabell is beautifully quotable. Let me finish with two more examples to further emphasize the key argument in the book:
For that to which romance conducts, in all the affairs of life (concluded John Charteris), is plain enough,—distinction and clarity, and beauty and symmetry, and tenderness and truth and urbanity. (p. 280)
To spin romances is, indeed, man's proper and peculiar function in a world wherein he only of created beings can make no profitable use of the truth about himself. For man alone of animals plays the ape to his dreams. (p. 43)
Although Beyond Life itself is not fantasy, to understand what Cabell is getting at in his great fantasies, you need to read it. It's easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees among Cabell's witty, elegant prose and erudite discussions of literature. In essence, however, Beyond Life is a passionate and compelling defense of life as the imitation of art, rather than art as the imitation of life.
September 7, 2023
“We have come very firmly to believe in the existence of men everywhere, not as in fact they are, but "as they ought to be.”
“It is by the grace of romance that man has been exalted above the other animals.”
“For all that the famed difficulties of getting a camel into a needle's eye are insignificant compared with the task of getting an era into a sentence, almost any book treating of the past is by ordinary a Museum of Unnatural History.”
“It is alone that, in defiance of the perturbing spectacle of man' futility and insignificance, as the passing skin-trouble of an unimportant planet, he can still foster hope and urbanity and all the other gallant virtues, serenely knowing all the while that if he builds without any firm foundation his feat is but the more creditable.”
“It is by the grace of romance that man has been exalted above the other animals.”
“For all that the famed difficulties of getting a camel into a needle's eye are insignificant compared with the task of getting an era into a sentence, almost any book treating of the past is by ordinary a Museum of Unnatural History.”
“It is alone that, in defiance of the perturbing spectacle of man' futility and insignificance, as the passing skin-trouble of an unimportant planet, he can still foster hope and urbanity and all the other gallant virtues, serenely knowing all the while that if he builds without any firm foundation his feat is but the more creditable.”
may-read
October 21, 2013My local library has a first edition of this book.
October 23, 2024
I'm a bit sad about this one, because I love James Branch Cabell, but I find my patience (or ability) to read him, when he goes on, has diminished over time. I'm re-reading Figures of Earth as well and didn't realise how eXtra he got at times there, when I'd been so compelled by the power of the story (in my youth). But Beyond Life doesn't have the power of story to help it along, it's Cabell off on a diatribe about writing and being and thinking and it's about as entertaining as if he nabbed you after a party and bored you to death.
I'm sure some of his ideas are interesting, apt, and still pertinent: but it's hard to see them, surrounded as they are by so much verbiage. I'd rather just re-read his novels (or read them for the first time, since I missed a few), so I'll do that instead.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
I'm sure some of his ideas are interesting, apt, and still pertinent: but it's hard to see them, surrounded as they are by so much verbiage. I'd rather just re-read his novels (or read them for the first time, since I missed a few), so I'll do that instead.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews