Book Review: The Spy - A Novel of Mata Hari by Paolo Coehlo

 

The Spy – A Novel of Mata Hari

by Paolo Coehlo

Our thematic book club chose the theme of “espionage” for November and I went looking in our digital catalog for books about spies. This led me to The Spy by Paolo Coehlo, translated from the Portugese. I’ve heard many good things about his writing but never read one of his books before. I’m on the bandwagon now and will be reading more by him.

It was a fascinating read, though I think it would have been a trifle easier to follow if I’d gotten the ebook instead of the audiobook. After getting a look at the ebook, it appears that there was some physical formatting that didn’t translate well into the audio. Nevertheless, it was a very interesting listen.

I can’t remember when I first heard of Mata Hari, but I’d always thought of her a spy who was duly executed, but Coehlo paints a rather different picture. He begins with her execution, but then he takes the reader back in time, to when she was known simply as Margaretha Zelle, a Dutch girl.

In her teen years, Margaretha was sexually abused by the principal of her school but afraid to speak up for fear of being sent home. Her parents died when she was just fifteen and she answered an advertisement for a mail order bride, but the man she married turned out to be just as abusive as her former principal. There was also the tragedy of her murdered son.

Things changed when she saw another officer’s wife choose to commit suicide rather than endure the broken marriage. She decided to take her life into her own hands. She became Mata Hari.

Coehlo appears to have done a good bit of research for the book. He presents Mata Hari as someone who traded gossip, not really state secrets. It is offered that she went to the French authorities when the Germans approached her but, in the end, she scape goated over a failed military operation.

Though, of course, there will always be some question of how events really occurred so long ago, I found the way the story was presented singularly effective. I definitely want to read more by Coehlo now.