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3.23 AVERAGE
3.23 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
3.5/5
En het eerste boek van 2017 is een feit. Technisch gezien ben ik het beginnen lezen in 2016, maar details. Allemaal details. Soit.
Ik heb de eerste 80% van dit boek in één ruk uitgelezen. Mata Hari is zo'n historische figuur waar ik al zoveel over heb gehoord, maar waar ik niet echt iets over wist. Ik wist dat ze dé femme fatale bij uitstek was, maar waarom eigenlijk? Dus dat gedeelte was fascinerend en heb ik geboeid gelezen. Maar ergens rond de 80% komt haar advocaat aan het woord en dat moest precies niet voor mij. De vertelstem sprak me niet aan en het brak een beetje met het voorgaande deel van het boek.
Zoals altijd met de boeken van Paulo Coelho waren er weer heel wat prachtige quotes te vinden in dit boek. Dit was zonder twijfel mijn favoriet:
"Know what you want and try to go beyond your own expectations. Improve your dancing, practice a lot, and set a very high goal, one that will be difficult to achieve. Because that is an artist’s mission: to go beyond one’s limits. An artist who desires very little and achieves it failed in life.”
En het eerste boek van 2017 is een feit. Technisch gezien ben ik het beginnen lezen in 2016, maar details. Allemaal details. Soit.
Ik heb de eerste 80% van dit boek in één ruk uitgelezen. Mata Hari is zo'n historische figuur waar ik al zoveel over heb gehoord, maar waar ik niet echt iets over wist. Ik wist dat ze dé femme fatale bij uitstek was, maar waarom eigenlijk? Dus dat gedeelte was fascinerend en heb ik geboeid gelezen. Maar ergens rond de 80% komt haar advocaat aan het woord en dat moest precies niet voor mij. De vertelstem sprak me niet aan en het brak een beetje met het voorgaande deel van het boek.
Zoals altijd met de boeken van Paulo Coelho waren er weer heel wat prachtige quotes te vinden in dit boek. Dit was zonder twijfel mijn favoriet:
"Know what you want and try to go beyond your own expectations. Improve your dancing, practice a lot, and set a very high goal, one that will be difficult to achieve. Because that is an artist’s mission: to go beyond one’s limits. An artist who desires very little and achieves it failed in life.”
Paulo Coelho did shade to Mata Hari! At first I was like oml four stars for sure but later actually reading READING about Mata Hari I was like damn the shade he did to her.
If there was one author who I think knew women well, maybe even a bit too well, it would definitely be Paulo Coelho. From Eleven Minutes to The Spy, Coelho celebrates the female spirit - it's will to be carefree, liberated and unbound to any social stigma. The Spy, which chronicles the story of Mata Hari, a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for the Germans by the French during World War I, is yet another obeisance to this spirit, but ironically happens to show us how far we need to go before womankind is truly liberated.
The Spy is a riveting, fictional, autobiographical account of who and what Mata Hari is in the form of a letter to her lawyer. Coelho deftly manages to achieve this and he, with great success, manages to convince his audience that there once lived a beautiful, intelligent, independent woman who's only crime was her existence.
The Spy is a riveting, fictional, autobiographical account of who and what Mata Hari is in the form of a letter to her lawyer. Coelho deftly manages to achieve this and he, with great success, manages to convince his audience that there once lived a beautiful, intelligent, independent woman who's only crime was her existence.
I didn't know anything about Mata Hari before reading this. I really enjoyed this book but I wish it was flushed out a little more. Some of the reviews here that I have read gave me more information about her life than this book really did.
I'm not the biggest Paulo Coelho fan to begin with...to me it always seems like he's writing just to get a bunch of instagramable quotes out there. This book was his most obvious attempt in my opinion. Random characters would just show up out of the blue with the soul purpose of "dropping some wisdom." It was weird to me. Again, I'm not a Coelho fan but I gave this book a shot because I love the stories about Mata Hari. His telling was pretty miserable. This book is short but it took me way too long to get through.
Very interesting book on a very interesting woman. I love how raw the book is.
surprisingly watered down for such an interesting story and subject. assuming that hopefully just happened in translation
I was very excited about this book... and then very disappointed. I looked forward to reading about the life of a person who's name I have heard but know nothing about. I was ready for some intrigue during a story of a strong liberated woman. I'm a way, I did get that. I just felt more like cliff notes than a full novel. So much was glossed over and almost no angle was fully explored. I understand this was meant to be the deathbed letter of a wrongly convicted woman... but it came off as superficial and with no purpose except to take up time.