that undefinable quality of beauty

I read a book last night (that I finished early this morning), and it made me cry.

Real, physical tears trailing down my nose.

I don’t actually, physically cry very often at books. Most don’t move me to tears, even if that happens to many other readers. I see it often enough in reviews—readers will report sobbing over certain books—but I personally am just not that easily taken in, I guess. I don’t think it’s because I’m not emotionally drawn to stories (quite the opposite), but simply that to get me over that edge, it takes a lot.

Or so I thought.

What was interesting to me was that the tears were not because it was a sad book—or even a particularly angst-filled or drama-filled book.

They were because it was beautiful.

And I realized that the reason why I was so moved by this book is that it had this undefinable quality—something that I can’t quite grasp or articulate—that made it so gorgeous.

Like a painting or a garden or fashion or anything designed by humans that manages to hit that mark of art where it hits your soul.

(Apparently I’m not the only one to think so. It was a Lambda finalist a few years back.)

But this is interesting to me, because I can’t point to you any particular passage or plot point in the book that made it so beautiful. Nothing in it stands out as the most beautiful part. It simply wasn’t any one thing.

In fact, I can’t really tell you what moved me so much about this book, other than the prose was lyrical, the characters were these broken but whole souls who were made better by knowing each other and falling in love with each other, and I felt the story.

I felt it even more because the characters were so far removed from my experience, it’s funny. I’m not British or male, I don’t have Tourette’s, I’m not an ex-con, I don’t run restaurants. My cat is nice (theirs was an “arsehole.”) They were quirky, with an unconventional relationship that wasn’t like any I have personally experienced. And yet I was captivated by this book. It was delicate and deep, entertaining and profound. Simply lovely.

I think the fact that I can’t point out what was so ineffably beautiful about this book is the very reason why it’s so beautiful. That the author managed to capture what is so hard to do in a novel—say something over a course of chapters.

The book itself is the art.

I almost don’t want to say what book it was, because as readers we bring our own experience to the story. What might hit me profoundly could be no big deal to you or someone else.

But if you’re curious, it was Misfits by Garrett Leigh.

Kudos to the author for creating true art.