THE AGE

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

19 April 1952

(page 11)

A NEW SLANT ON SICILY.

Puppets, Bandits and the

Thrills of Tunny Fishing.

Few islands of the Western Mediterranean have had as much written about them as Sicily. It is rich endowed with temples, cathedrals and architecture, and its history reaches back through many wars to the first colinisation in 1200 B.C.

It comes more of a surprise, therefore, to find a book about Sicily that deals with none of the usual tourist attractions, but reaches into the little-known corners of Sicilian life—a life with a full complement of oddities and adventures.

“Swordfish and Stromboli,” by Denis Clark (Jarrolds) is the journal of a man who set out to “blaze a new trail for penurious holiday-goers such as himself” but who was distracted from his purpose by a series of adventures.

[ . . . ]

Puppets, tunny, bandits. Even after those experiences the curious Mr. Clark was not satisfied. From the mountains which his Guiliano he went to Cefalu, and dared to camp at the Villa Santa Barbara [Abbey of Thelema].

Who will recall the Villa Santa Barbara today? It provided one of the most sensational stories of the late twenties, when Aleister Crowley, an Englishman, set up an establishment there and proclaimed himself “the wickedest man in the world.”

“Now there is nothing to see,” said Mr. Clark in a moment of disappointment. “The walls had been scraped of the terrible murals and then limewashed after an outraged carabinieri had requested Crowley to leave the island.”

[ . . . ]