I have been, for reasons I will leave to the side for the moment, researching the mythical background of Sicily, which I visited last year. Of particular note, my traveling companions and I spent a lovely day in Taormina, an ancient city on a ridge, south of Messina. Absolutely stunning place, home to a beautiful medieval town and a striking Roman amphitheater.
Sicily has any number of interesting ancient myths attached to it. Scylla and Charybdis of Odysseus fame, the Fata Morgana (a nautical mirage in the Strait of Messina, named after Morgana of King Arthur fame), Mount Etna and the Forge of Hephaestus, Odysseus and the Cyclops, and more. As I researched, I learned that, at least in Sicilian legend, Sicily became the home of Dionysus, the god of wine, revelry, religious ecstasy, lavish festival orgies, Bacchanalia, and all that.
Dionysus? Sicily? Sounds off. He’s Greek, right? So I decided to research a bit.
A quick google of “Dionysus sicily” does not produce anything definitive (for maximal confusion, one of the early rulers of Sicily was Dionisius, a completely different fellow). It does, however, produce this: http://whitealmond-privatesicily.blogspot.com/2016/07/villa-dionysus-taormina.html
From this, I learn a few interesting things: Taormina has been a destination resort for literary types since ancient times. Cicero, Aeschylus, and others. Goethe, Guy de Maupassant. Slightly more recently, DH Lawrence came here, and reportedly wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover here, inspired by a true life love affair between an English lady expat and a local Sicilian gardener. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Thus Spake Zarathustra here. The canonical cover, left, takes on new meaning for me knowing it was written in Taormina.
I also learned that there is a lovely B&B called Villa Dionysus (“Dionysio”), run by the host “Eros”. Ahem. We then learn that Eros is “professional novelist, analytical psychologist and adventurer who’s [sic] main themes are erotic philosophy, sensuosity [sic], the psychology of Carl Jung (a Swiss psychologist) and the philosophy of the early Athenian hedonists.” Double Ahem. And that he has a charming female assistant. Triple Ahem. Definitely moved on to throat clearing now.
How could I have missed this place when we came? And who is this Eros character, and are his books any good? Googling the villa itself to learn more about Eros came to naught. So I went to work finding the fellow himself. After about 15 minutes of Googling, I came upon this: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/lonely-hearts-job-advert-seeking-6626254
From which we learn: Eros is Eros de Grey, a nom de plume, and he’s apparently written a job advertisement for a Literary Assistant (“Miss Moneypenny cum Bree van de Kamp cum Archetypal Muse cum Lara Croft” sheesh), according to the ad. Well then. And apparently this ad has gone viral and is widely mocked as “the worst job ad ever.” It does, of course, read much more like a bad Tinder profile than a job ad. Still, he has an assistant named Emily, so something worked.
Mr. Grey is apparently actually “Stratos Malamatinas, who last made headlines as one of the directors of a company selling essays to university students.” HAHAHAHAHA of course he is.
None of Mr. Grey’s porn novels appear to have been published as near as we can determine, so the quality of his “erotic philosophy” are yet to be judged.
Still, it might be a fun place to stay.
Dionysus indeed.