But_i_thought_'s Reviews > Chouette

Take your idea of dark and twisted motherhood. Add in a twist of violence and subversion. Mix in fairy-tale elements and a sense of disorientation. Crank up the unreliable narrator meter. Introduce frequent diversions to dream logic and a sprinkling of the feral. Fold in something tender and just a hint of the carnal. Behold, you have a taste of “Chouette”.

Part parable, part experimental testimony, “Chouette” is Claire Oshetsky’s ode to motherhood, drawing on her experience raising two non-conforming children. The narrator of the novel, a married woman called Tiny, tells us:

“I dream I’m making tender love with an owl. The next morning I see talon marks across my chest that trace the path of my owl-lover’s embrace. Two weeks later I learn that I’m pregnant.”

True to her fears, Tiny eventually gives birth to an owl-baby, which she calls Chouette (French for ‘owl’). Chouette is different to other babies:

“This baby will never learn to speak, or love, or look after itself. It will never learn to read or toss a football.”

Tiny’s husband is devastated. Is Chouette’s owl-ness to be read as metaphor for bodily difference and neurodiversity, or have we entered the realm of the fantastical? It is up to you to decide - to read ‘Chouette’ is to surrender, in many ways, to the surreal and the ambiguous.

What is clear is that the novel captures, with lyrical intensity, the loneliness and violence and ecstasy of early motherhood, with the added complexity of non-normative care:

“It could be that you’ve injected me with your little talon. It could be that your talon is dipped in the poison of mother-love.”

The more Tiny dedicates herself to her new role, however, the more her husband withdraws. He becomes determined to “fix” Chouette (who he insists on calling “Charlotte”) through a series of bizarre experimental treatments. The contrasting viewpoints between both parents forms the philosophical axis around which the plot revolves:

“The birds are telling me that my life’s work, as your mother, will be to teach you how to be yourself – and to honor however much of the wild world you have in you, owl-baby – rather than mold you to be what I want you to be, or what your fathers wants you to be.”

The lyricism of the book’s prose is matched by its musicality. As a former cellist, Tiny frequently hears and describes musical pieces that reflect her internal weather. Most striking of these are works like Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Sept Papillons’ and Messiaen’s 'Oiseaux Exotiques’ – pieces that, when consumed in conjunction with the prose, add to the book’s eerie, otherworldly atmosphere.

My only challenge with the book is that it takes some rather bizarre and violent turns, which I found difficult to reconcile with the book’s otherwise nurturing themes. One could say that ‘Chouette’ pushes the boundaries of comfort, deliberately so, leaving you feeling slightly bewildered, rattled, violated, while simultaneously challenging your perceptions of the normative. In this, its unusual combination of the tender and the ruthless, ‘Chouette’ is bound to unsettle the right reader in just the right way.

Mood: Dark, surreal, discordant
Rating: 8/10

Also on Instagram.

Soundtrack to the novel

The author summarizes the soundtrack for the novel in an epilogue. Here are the pieces that stood out for me:

• Part’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’
• Rautavaara’s ‘Cantus Arcticus’
• Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ Quartet
• Anna Clyne’s ‘Dance’
• Schumann’s ‘An meinem Herzen, an meiner Brust’
• Dvorjak’s ‘Silent Woods’
• Dvorjak’s ‘Miniatures’
• Messiaen’s ‘Oiseaux Exotiques’
• Britten’s ‘Bordone’
• Massenet’s Werther’
• Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Sept Papillons’
• Final death-scene of ‘Carmen’
• Gorecki’s ‘Symphony of Sorrowful Songs’
• Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique’ Symphony, Movement 3
• Brahm’s ‘Ein Deutsches Requiem’
• Stravinky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ for four hands
• Busto’s ‘Ave Maria, gratia plena!’