The Inner Life of Objects [Paperback]

Maxine Combs (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1999

A look at the search for meaning and the bizarre ways in which lives and objects are interconnected.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In The Inner Life of Objects, crack fiction writer Maxine Combs delivers a quirky little novel with a comedic cast of New Age characters that explores the mysterious, magical, and mundane workings of the human mind as it interfaces with the objects that inhabit its life. The heroine, Opal Kirshbaum, a 59-year-old cancer and motherhood survivor, runs the Zoetic Society, which explores anything paranormal or just plain odd. In the few weeks during which this book takes place, a likeness of Eleanor Roosevelt appears on a refrigerator in a Texas landfill, while Opal waits for an insect in one of her husband's paintings to write her a message. Psychic Abel Moore, who is accurate only 33 percent of the time, is invited to lecture, and the reader is encouraged to contemplate how it is that the material world defines the individual, and what, if anything, is the meaning of it all. This affectionate look at the New Age is great fun for readers who can laugh at themselves. --P. Randall Cohan

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: CALYX Books (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0934971722
• ISBN-13: 978-0934971720
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,621,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating exploration into the nature of belief., February 4, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Inner Life of Objects (Paperback)

The Inner Life Of Objects is a tour through the lives and eccentricities of five memorable characters caught up in the Zoetic Society's exploration of the paranormal. Opal Kirshbaum is an aspiring actress; there's Opal's painter husband, Sol; Geneva Lamp is an English Ph.D.; Poppy Greengold is a single mother into reading Goddess books; and guest lecturer Abel Moore is a visiting psychic whose predictions are accurate 33 percent of the time. The Inner Life Of Objects is a novel drawing upon occultism and parapsychology, exploring our secret selves, seeking the hidden meaning of the objects in our lives, and revealing the extraordinary and sometimes surprising connections between our selves and our objects. Lyrical, poetic, engaging, embedded with insights, and the occasional flair of literary inspiration, The Inner Life Of Objects is recommended reading for anyone with an interest in a great novel arising from an exploration into the nature of belief and the human condition.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Novel Of Ideas, January 4, 2000

By 

Mel B. (Arlington, Va USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Inner Life of Objects (Paperback)

This is a literary confection to delight. Not only does voice/authority runs through the book, but the principal characters are all interesting, engage the reader--from Opal, the investigator of New Age phenomena, Geneva the unpragmatic intellectual, a Yeats scholar, with life skipping her by, and Poppy, a feminist idealogue to an extent, unbalanced, comic, but with real life issues (the tragedy over her ex-lover, her youth, her baby) that give depth. Of course, the heart of the book is Abel Moore (A play on words here, with this question for the reader: is he "more able" than the rest of us. The novel builds in tension for his arrival, and the climax of the novel, that is, the issue of whether he will be able to demonstrate his "special powers." Can one tell the history of an object from feeling it? Do such people exist? Here's a novel of ideas (a la Huxley?), but of the New Age sort. Hats off to Ms. Combs!