i think the dubai penthouse might be my favorite House in all of gothic fiction
the imagery in 2.01, our protagonist through the bars of the headboard walking in, framed as a caged bird in the casual intimacy of changing clothes. the magnolia tree armand brought along before his worst betrayal now thriving in rocks and armand says the interior designer hired was a sentimentalist some notion of hers he was missing the natural world, abt the judas tree he brought in ! armand controlling the windows, the books, their lives. the building is haunted; it sways, it creaks, it whines, it's called the groan. claudia's diaries and marius' paintings. the whips and chains by the bedroom. the lack of doors, anywhere, the illusion of openness, the illusion of privacy. the endless gray of it, with very little to break up the monotony but the carefully carefully curated art, including a judas painting. the invisible labor in a city built on blood, the striking lack of metaphor with the blood donors, that come and go and fall to the floor in a faint on their way out. the woman haunting that tower trapped in a relationship with a man she does not know, a kept thing suffocated entirely into submission and placid comfort. where's your coffin? you're standing in it.
