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I was going to stay way clear of this one, after all the "It's basically Twilight with zombies!" talk: After the apocalypse, a zombie falls in love with a human girl after eating her boyfriend's brains... come ON.

But as a quick, fluffy read, it's quite passable, and owes a fair bit to the original Dawn Of The Dead filtered through a high school report on Romeo And Juliet. There's a basic metaphor (as in one, single, uncomplicated) metaphor about society increasingly built on conflict and us vs them mentality that works fairly well, and at first I find myself loving the running gag that the narrator (who's a zombie) narrates in this ridiculously overblown, fauxlosophical purple prose that he's unable to say out loud since, well, he's a zombie. When it becomes obvious after a while that it's not really supposed to be a joke but simply the way Marion writes, well... but it's got decent characterisation and a heartfelt idea and braaaaaaaaains, so it's worth finishing if you bother to start it.

Les Choses is very noticeably a debut novel. Which isn't to say it's bad. As a sarcastic nod to Sartre (as if the title didn't give it away) it's not crap, as a satire of Mad Men-style materialism (it's subtitled a history of the 1960s, published in 1963) it's lost none of whatever sting it had - living in Stockholm's hipster neighbourhood in 2013, I know these people personally. (Hell, I probably am them.) And even if the satire is a bit too obvious, Perec delves beneath it - turning the never-ending litany of objects and what they symbolise into an almost mystical experience; it's not a sibling of Herzog's Fata Morgana, but definitely a distant cousin.

That said, it's not a nice novel by any stretch. Young Perec is ruth- and merciless in the way he eviscerates his characters... actually that's not correct; in order to eviscerate them he'd first have to flesh them out, and Jérome and Sylvie only exist as would-be consumers, defined only by what they want and cannot have (which we're told outright by the none-too-subtle narrator). It's a novel to admire, but unlike much of his later work, it sneers where it might have winked.

"Hi, my fellow atheists, my name is Alain and I'm a Philosopher."

"Hi, Alain. Sounds like a fun job."

"You have no idea. And when I say 'my fellow atheists', I include you lot over there who may believe in something in general but don't live actively religious lives."

"Uh, really? OK, hi."

"I wanted to talk to you about something I'm sure you, as atheists, can relate to. You know how life without religious faith is grey, stressful, depressive and focused solely on selfish personal gain? And we all agree that the world was better back when nobody was poor and everyone always helped each other out, and that religion - in particular catholicism, since they have shiny shiny robes - without exception brings out the best in man and would be the perfect basis of society if not for the annoying factual detail that God doesn't exist, am I right?"

"...Do you need a hug?"

"OK, let's start in this end: For thousands of years, we invented religions to fill basic needs of community, moral guidelines, inner balance, etc. And just because some of us don't believe in God anymore, those needs don't just go away overnight."

"That's probably a good point. Which is why we - "

"So I came up with this brilliant idea! Since there is absolutely nothing in secular society to fulfill those needs, we can simply steal them wholesale from religions! Let's build atheist temples, let's introduce atheist saints - for instance, fashion designers and bankers - and build new organisations with dogma that's as fixed and immutable as that of the Catholic church or McDonald's, to tell us how we should act towards ourselves and others. Clearly this 'freedom' thing isn't working out, as I'm sure we all agree, and what we need is a stern parent to tell us exactly what's good for us and what's forbidden. If it works for five-year-olds, it has to work for adult society too."

"Wait, what - "

"And build restaurants where you have to follow a liturgical script and tell the waiter about your deepest doubts to be allowed to order! And tell married women they're no longer allowed to say 'no' to us in the bedroom!"

"Because marital rape is happiness, gotcha. And 'us'? I thought you were speaking to all your fellow people here, not just 50%?"

"What's your point? Oh, and as a gold star for those who follow my rules, at the end of every year we get an ORGY where we get to have sex with anyone we want!"

"You're joking."

"Absolutely not. Look at this picture in my book where a young woman blows an older man at a huge party. Look how happy he is!"

"...You're not joking."

"And what about the universities? What kind of society are we building, anyways?"

"You mean how they just focus on careers and professions and not enough on humanities?"

"Au contraire! Did you know - I couldn't believe it myself at first when I visited an actual university, I tell you, I was shocked - that we teach university students to think critically about things like literature and history? That's obviously got to go. Today's literature is completely, to quote myself, 'ungodly,' and all that modern culture teaches us is to think in abstracts and question structures rather than just give us clear and simple rules on how to live! Christianity, on the other hand, has realised that people must be told - "

"Fine. So what do you, as an atheist philosopher, suggest we read?"

"Well, quoting myself again, 'twelve verses from Deuteronomy' should be enough. Oh, and artists and film makers and writers shouldn't be allowed to think for themselves just because they know how to paint or photograph or turn a phrase, but just like when the Pope ordered the Sistine Chapel from Michelangelo, they should get all their motives handed to them from - "

"Let me guess: self-appointed philosophers?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself!"

"I really really believe that. So basically, you want to combat the increasing polarisation of society into various dogmatic cults by starting a dogmatic cult of your own?"

"Oh no. My suggestions are perfect for all."

"And by 'all' you mean 'Alain', don't you?"

"No, it's just as generally applicable as... well, how everyone would choose Natalie Portman over Scarlett Johansson since Natalie's eyes reflect the calm we never got from our hypochondric mother. Uh, mothers."

"Oh dear god."

"Well, if you insist..."

"OK, efuckingnough. Honestly, you have a few interesting points somewhere, but your argumentation is ridiculous. Your versions of both secular and religious society are as parodically exaggerated as those of any religious fundamentalist. You pull arguments from thin air and apply copypasted out-of-context bits of religions you happen to find personally appealing like you were selling snake oil, with no hint of acknowledgment of how well they've worked or gone wrong during the past few thousand years, or why a lot of us have put considerable effort into moving away from a society controlled by arbitrary rules made and imposed by the few. Basically, you come across as terrified that society might change, and that if people stop listening to the pope, they might stop listening to you as well, and you're making a hell of a good case for doing so without even realising it. Honestly, your contempt for humanity at large doesn't bother me nearly as much as your contempt for your readers."

"It's interesting you should say that, because after reading the reviews of my book, I've come up with ten commandm... uh, virtues of modern men. Look, 'politeness' is number five. HA! Now what do you have to say?"

"..."

"Hey! Where are you going? What about my temple?"

Alan Sepinwall started out as a TV critic back in the mid-90s, when most people still couldn't conceive that there was anything on TV you could write enough about to earn the title "critic". Then came the new wave of US TV drama in the late 90s and throughout the 00s, with shows that tried to use the medium to tell stories that no other medium could; complex, ambitious, character-driven, taking months or even years to unfold and add to themsleves, tackling real-life issues from the personal to the political through fiction. Oz, The Sopranos, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, The Wire, Deadwood, The Shield, Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Mad Men, Breaking Bad...

So in this book, Sepinwall goes around and interviews the producers, writers and actors of these and other shows, talks to them about how it happened, what they were trying to do, how they work, their relationship to the network and to other media, and how come creative talent seems to shift to the so-called idiot box while Hollywood becomes ever more obsessed with blockbusters and needless remakes.

Obviously, your opinion of the book will depend on your opinion of the subject. If you're a fan - however you define that term - of any or some of these series, it's a very good read indeed; if you couldn't care less, you won't care any more. Sepinwall is obviously fascinated with them, and at times he becomes a little too respectful of them, but he gets his interviewees talking and gets to the root of the trickier issues around them - why we care about virtually irredeemable characters like Tony Soprano and Walter White, what does it say that the first TV series inspired by 9/11 was a sci-fi series loosely based on a crap 70s show, the way people elevate Don Draper to a style icon even as his story becomes more disturbing, whether this is a permanent improvement of the medium or just a lucky blip on the radar...

The only major drawback is that the book is entirely focused on the shows Sepinwall likes. Everything else - including the fact that the CSIs, the American Idols and the 2 1/2 Mens of the world still get 10 times the viewership of any well-scripted HBO drama aiming for Great American Novel territory - barely gets a mention. But then, that's not the point either.