This brief novel tells the story of the important points in the life of the exotic dancer Mata Hari. I was unfamiliar with the story of Mata Hari when I started reading this book. I had only heard the name, and associated it with exoticism. Listening to it, it really seemed like Mata Hari was in the car with me telling her story. The story was brief, and slightly confusing due to the author’s tendency to gloss over years at a time. The language was beautiful, and did a good job of telling the story of a woman ahead of her time. Whether or not that’s the life Mata Hari had doesn’t matter as much for a fiction title, though it’s clear the author is using her life to make his own philosophical point.
The third part of the novel soured it for me, as the new narrator mansplained Mata Hari’s mistakes to her. On the plus side, I guess she didn’t have to listen to it. The book would have been much stronger if it was all her own perspective. Still, the first two parts were pretty interesting.
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