Chinese Oracle Review
The Chinese Oracle is a 24 card oracle deck written by Zhong Ling and illustrated by Paolo Barbieri. The deck is published by Lo Scarabeo. The cards measure 3.5 x 5 inches.
Quality:
The Chinese Oracle is packaged in a compact box with a lift off lid, and the guidebook is a miniature bound book. The cardstock appears to be a medium grade – it’s sturdy enough for regular shuffling, but I am curious about how the finish will hold up over time. The cards are glossy, but it looks like they have a thin coating. It’s possible that this is a finish I am less familiar with, and it will wear like iron, but that’s hard to say with a deck fresh out of the box.
Extra Materials (guidebook):
The multilingual guidebook for this deck is 128 pages long. The English section is 16 pages long, and it includes information about the deck’s creators, background information about the Chinese Zodiac, entries for each card, and instructions for using the deck. I appreciated the inclusion of a table for looking up your zodiac sign, it’s a great quick reference tool.
Because the guidebook does not include card images or fluff, it contains more useful information than you might expect at a glance. It’s straightforward and more practically oriented than most oracles, which I find to be a welcome breath of fresh air. Large card entries aren’t always more useful than concise ones, and the Chinese Oracle guidebook is proof of that. Each card entry has a sentence or phrase that summarizes the card’s theme, a list of keywords, a description relating to details in the image, and meanings for the card’s yin and yang versions. The book concludes with a spread and instructions for interpretation (more on that in the content section below).
Unfortunately, there are typos and bits of awkward wording, and while this is not uncommon with multilingual guides, it does take away from what would be a fairly solid accompaniment to the deck. The book is understandable and usable in spite of this, it just lacks polish.
Artwork:
Barbieri’s artwork is intricate and inspired. His technical skill with rendering human and animal anatomy combines with otherworldly, dreamlike expression to create fantastic illustrations. The compositions are imaginative and lush colors bring a sense of vitality. As a lover of Barbieri’s artwork, adding this deck to my collection was a must. The Snake is my favorite card.
Content:
Although this is a deck of 24 cards, there are only 12 different images – one for each sign of the zodiac. There are two of each card in the deck, one that signifies using the yin interpretation (black border) and one for the yang interpretation (white border). The reading method for this deck utilizes a 3×3 “past, present, future” grid layout. The number of yin and yang cards in each triplet modifies its meaning, as does receiving both the yin and yang version of a single zodiac sign. This system of yin vs. yang cards could be adapted to other spreads as well.
Although this method adds interesting nuances to reading the cards, having the yang meanings correspond to an upright card and the yin to reversed cards would also have worked, allowing for the addition of 12 unique cards. Alternatively, if the yin and yang version of each zodiac sign had unique artwork the system would work well without reversals and still feel like a “fuller” deck. I like the concept of the yin and yang system, but the way it was implemented was a bit disappointing since I would have liked to see more of Barbieri’s artwork.
Conclusion:
This deck has an interesting reading system, as well as a halfway decent guidebook – save for the typos. The artwork is phenomenal, and although it would have been great to have 24 unique cards instead of 12, it’s still a lovely oracle. It works as a standalone deck, but it would also add some intriguing new dimensions when paired with other decks, including Barbieri’s other works. If you would prefer a deck with this style of artwork and more of it, or you would like to “bulk up” this slim deck – I recommend the Barbieri Tarot and Zodiac Oracles linked below.
More like this… Barbieri Zodiac Oracle, Barbieri Tarot, Astrological Oracle Cards
Quality: ****
Extra Materials: ***
Artwork: *****
Content: **
Overall Score: 3.5 out of 5
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