Postmodernism is the realm of consumer culture, in contrast to what we might call the production culture of modernism. If modernism believes we can know reality, postmodernism argues that we are all confounded by illusions and hyperreality. A pastiche is similar to a collage, with bits and pieces of this and that forming a work of art. We can say that modernism involves stylistic purity and a belief in metanarratives, postmodernism involves stylistic eclecticism and variety, with the pastiche as the governing metaphor. It is ironic in tone and has characters with fantastic names, whose significance is only meaningful to people who are familiar with American popular culture. It is a pastiche, containing a play with a novel, and it is permeated by a fascination with American popular culture and American material culture. Thomas Pynchon's novel, The Crying of Lot 49, is generally considered a classic example of a postmodern novel.
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