Book and life converge

Weds Dec 23  first day of winter, the solstice turn was last night and tonight at 9:28 pm I have just read this in Tournier’s novel The Ogre:  They are celebrating the Sun Child, “risen from his ashes at the winter solstice.  The sun’s trajectory had reached its lowest level and the day was the shortest of the year: the death of the sun god was therefore lamented as an impending cosmic fatality.  Funeral chants celebrating the woe of the earth and the inhospitableness of the sky praised the dead luminary’s virtues and begged him to return among men.  And the lament was answered, for from then on every day would gain on the night, at first imperceptibly but soon with triumphant ease.”  page 264