Structurally interesting but frustratingly inconsistent. Hessler is an excellent craftsman and the structure of the book (narratives of present-day migrants divided by interstitial meditations on the politics surrounding interpretation of ancient written artifacts, the eponymous oracle bones) gives the book a measure of coherence, even though Hessler pointedly avoids developing any particular thesis about the Experience and Character of Modern China.

Hessler's skills as a writer can't make up for the inconsistent nature of the stories he follows. The pages that track the career of oracle bone scholar Chen Mengjia are a bit of a puzzle -- they often turn on errata about sources and documents that never resolve into anything meaningful. other stories seem like excerpts from the cutting room floor of his freelance career. The story about the Bronze Horse of Wuwei is particularly frustrating - it ends with a fact checker from the New Yorker apologetically disputing the relevant particulars of the previous material. If it wasn't ready for the pages of the New Yorker (amusingly translated as New York Person magazine by some bureaucratic apparatus of the Chinese government), why does it make the cut for Oracle Bones.

All in all, there's a lot to love about Oracle Bones. The stories that track the progress of his students from [b:River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze|94053|River Town Two Years on the Yangtze (P.S.)|Peter Hessler|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171271609s/94053.jpg|1441686], now teaching English around the country, are spectacular, capturing a spectrum of experiences from young people caught up in the China's enormous structural transformation. Confidential to William Jefferson Foster: come to New York and crash at my place. We'll brief you on all of the slang insults that we've got.