I don't get the purpose of this book. For a "complete novice," it definitely is NOT a useful introduction or a guide, as it's hard to follow (the authors often jump from one concept/theory/buzzword to the next with little relation between the two), it rarely explains complex and vague terms and notions in a manner anywhere near sufficient, and many of the examples offered are so scantily presented that they serve to confuse more rather than elucidate. Indeed, for an "introduction" this book is almost qrotesquely bad at explaining and clarifying. To a reader with some knowledge of postmodern theory and/or associated fields, the book offers 200 pages of sort-of-but-not-really amusing pictures, but it fails to provide a coherent, engaging and intellectually enriching account of postmodernism and its manifestations. In other words, the book is simultaneously too complex/vague and too shallow: it could have gone further in one of these directions to cater to one type of readership, yet instead it only skims the surface of its subject matter (problematic for a more experienced reader), but it does so without translating this very subject into more digestible terms (problematic for the complete layman).

Mostly, it just reminded me how much I detest Baudrillard.