stephen king called it a "roundness". its the quality of some well crafted stories wherein everything comes together and there are no loose ends. where the ellipses are completed. where everything gains Significance. you see the roundness when things happen just so, when events make poetic statements, when the killer realizes his mortal blow was dealt by a victims daughter, when it is revealed that the last leaf was held through the storm by the german guy, when luke meets his father, when ahab meets moby dick, when you realize soylent green is people, when you realize who kaiser soze really is, when you realize "there was no aaron counselor", when it all comes full circle, a nice, closed curve. i feel that roundness right now; the gladness at the end of a good story.

[note that circles are defined by constant things (a radius) and ridiculously irrational things (like the value of pi). i think you can relate that to life somehow but i'll leave that part to somebody else (this is what happens when you read Cryptonomicon)]