Customer Reviews

Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari

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She was a slut, so she *must* have been a spy. In the hysterical waning days of World War I, illogic like that put Mata Hari in front of a firing squad. And when you need to blame someone for half a million dead French soldiers, what's wrong with a little patriarchal thinking?
Hauled off to the Dutch West Indies by her brutal military officer of a husband, Margaretha Zelle MacLeod remade herself in the Paris of the Belle Époque as an "international woman" famous for her pseudo-Hindu -- and, more to the point, nearly nude -- dances. Lascivious and famous for it -- she craved a man in uniform -- she wasn't exactly inconspicuous. When French spymasters tried to make use of her, it was like the CIA getting angry because they'd recruited Madonna and now everybody was recognizing her.
Mata Hari's notoriety and world travel make her the subject of a new biography about once every decade. The contribution of Pat Shipman's *Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari* lies mostly in detailing the lives of army wives in Indonesia (stifling heat, concubines, syphilis) and in sifting the evidence (mostly manufactured) of Mata Hari's ostensible spying on behalf of Germany. Trained as an anthropologist, Shipman veers toward academese in the West Indies chapters, however; she tends to quote primary documents (legal, military and amatory) too extensively.
Mata Hari, meanwhile, always impulsive but enterprising, drifted to Paris but refashioned herself as an "artistic" dancer; she sought out officers, then drifted into dabbling at espionage. Amusingly, she didn't know or much care about troop movements in the Great War (unless they affected her Russian boyfriend). Oh, sure, she had a motive against the Germans: They'd confiscated her white cloak and several of her favorite furs.
Caught at the nexus of sexism, scapegoating and her own naiveté, Mata Hari was an unsuspecting butterfly caught in a master manipulator's net. (There are bumbling police inspectors in her story, but also double agents.) Emphasizing that Mata Hari loved men too much and the truth too little, Shipman doesn't push the feminist angle. But today, if they only had flimsy evidence against her, would they be able to shoot Madonna?

A good biography of one of the 20th. Centuries most interesting spys/nonspy...Professor Shipman writes a no hold barred tale of Mata Hari...The book is really two stories. The first is how Margaretha Zelle born of Dutch parents became Mata Hari...Margaretha Zelle was a woman of enormous talents in language who mastered besides her native Dutch, German, French, English and Spanish along with with the languages of the Dutch East Indies where she pent her years as a young woman married to a Dutch Colonial Officer...Marrage, an abusive husband and the hard colonial life were not for her and after a few years she divorced here husband and returned to Holland...This was the begaining of her transformation from a wife and mother to a performer and a high priced courtesan...The second story was how she got involved in espionage and spying or not...Professor Shipman lays out the "factual information" we have on Mata Hari and then leaves it to the reader to determine if Mata Hari was a spy or because of her notarity and the fact that she had been a paid mistress of some many powerful men it was best to silence her...The reader has to determine if she was an agent for the Germans, French, both or some other country, the facts are not clear...If you like an honest well scribed book then you will enjoy Femme Fatle, but don't expect the author to spoon feed you any speculative ending.

I read for escape, and when I can also learn something along the way then it's even better. Shipman gives us a wonderfully written and fast-paced exciting book. You really feel sympathy for Mata Hari and pain at the horrible traps she walked into. What a wonderful snap-shot of that time in European history. I truly enjoyed every word in this book and highly recommend it.

I thought that this was a beautifully written book which was obviously thoughtfully researched.

The story of Mata Hari is inherently fascinating, but I appreciated Shipman's decision to balance the different stages of her life, while weaving the interelationships between them.

I do have one major criticism however. I did not know the complete story of Mata Hari before starting the book. The author obviously assumes that every reader already knows the end, since she spoils the suspense by referring to events that haven't happened yet throughout the book. Her decision to do this did not add value to the framing of the story and it detracted from my enjoyment.

how often we hear that such and such a person was guilty of this or that and take it as Gospel. how wrong we can be and i thank the author for her detailed exploration of the events in the life of a doomed woman who never spied in her life. i cannot imagine the insane amount of work required to complete such a book. thanks pat, you did a great job. some of the details of her life were tedious. this is to be expected in any book, though. the telling of the end of her life evoked much sadness. i will not forget mata hari.

Book goes quite in depth with Gerta's early life in the Dutch East Indies with her husband, but it helps to understand her personality. This poor wretch is branded only as a spy by the French who wanted to spy on the Germans and being refused, trumped up charges against her. Seems she was only an exotic dancer that enjoyed men in and out of uniform. Good read, only boring at times. Recommended.

I could almost feel sorry for Mrs MacLeod (Mata Hari). Almost. As the key factor in her own downfall, she had no one to blame but herself. As she spun her web of lies, mis-truths and deceit, she didn't see her own web closing in around her, until too late. It was a web of her own making.

I originally ordered this book through a friend's recommendation based on my friend's claim that here was a "innocent, if naive" woman, just struggling to make ends meet and getting falsley blamed for all of France's war woes and was subsequently executed. That is not how I read the book. While men might be to blame for their own reckless indiscretions and mistakes, they cannot be held liable when someone such as Mata Hari is doing so much of the manipulating. She wanted her cake and eat it, too. Unfortunately, this cake was the guillotine's blade...er, bullet. And the author, whether conscience of it or not, attests to Mata Hari's innocence, which as an impartial "reporter" she shouldn't do, unless she can offer evidence other than what was presented here.

So, I purchased this book at the behest of some NPR reporter or another, and I did so with my friend Amy in mind. Although not an avid reader, I will try to coax her into this book with the promise of great scandal. Months from now, I envision myself demanding the return of this book so I can read it (as I am sure she will have not) and I will enjoy it thoroughly. Up to this point though, I cannot attest to it's content. The cover is very lovely, though.