joyofreading

This fall/winter I've read three historical novels about women. 

The first was Tiger Queen which I've written about in a previous post. 

 

The second was Paulo Coelho's The Spy abput Mata Hari. 

A woman I've known about, but known very little about. 

Turns out her life story was very interesting, and at the time of her life outrageous. She was a woman who just wanted to bve free in a time when women went from the hands of their father's to their husbands and had no rights of their own. 

 

These are facts of her life: 

 

Mata Hari
Mata Hari in 1906
Born	Margaretha Geertruida Zelle 7 August 1876 Leeuwarden, Netherlands
Died	15 October 1917 (aged 41) Vincennes, Paris, France
Cause of death	Execution by firing squad
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	Exotic Dancer  Courtesan  Spy
Height	5 ft 10 in (1.78 m)
Spouse(s)	Rudolf John MacLeod (m. 1895; div. 1906)
Children	Norman-John MacLeod (son) (30 January 1897 – 27 June 1899) Louise Jeanne MacLeod (daughter) (2 May 1898 – 10 August 1919)
Parent(s)	Adam Zelle (father)  Antje van der Meulen (mother)
Spying career
Allegiance	France
Service	Deuxième Bureau
Active	1916–1917

Margaretha Geertruida "Margreet" MacLeod (née Zelle; 7 August 1876 – 15 October 1917), better known by the stage name Mata Hari (/ˈmɑːtə ˈhɑːri/), was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I^[1]and executed by firing squad in France

What I learned from Coelho's novel was that she, as a young woman, eager for adventure and to see the world, by chance ended up as a prisoner of a very abusive husband and officer in the Dutch army in Indonesia. There, her first child was murdered as revenge against her husband by an abused maid, and made it back to Europe where, by ingenuity, she was able to create a career as an exotic dancer whom powerful men were lusting for. 

She lived well as long as she let men do what they wanted with her and as long as she was young and beautiful. But as age made this more difficult she schemed and was, on the paper, a double spy, but in reality never did any real spy work. It was enoufg though for her to be sentenced in a mock trial and executed by a firing squad at age 41. 

The novel was, like all Coelho's books, a page turner and I enjoyed it.