because he has no respect for ritual.”
Other literary genres have charms of their own, but the
choices that horror novelists make are especially important because
they often touch on questions of ritual. As any priest, liturgist,
relief pitcher, band leader, wedding planner, barista, chef,
musician, teacher, bonsai gardener, or tea ceremony devotee could
tell you, it is human to take comfort in ritual. A local Starbucks
said exactly that before ceding space on its door to an
announcement about the return of the pumpkin latte.……But anyone who dismisses ritual as fluff, shoehorns mere
rhetoric into places where ritual should be, or sneers at the pomp
and circumstance with which ritual sometimes travels, is chopping
at more than the foundations of horror literature.