Amid all the inexplicable events that occur in our lives, does meaning exist—and if so, where can we find it? “Cream,” a short story published in the New Yorker, is author Haruki Murakami’s answer. Through the voice of its protagonist, Murakami meditates on the big questions and arrives at a strange—yet compelling—answer.
The story begins with the narrator telling his younger friend a story about an odd encounter that he had when he was 18. One day, a letter arrives in the mail—an invitation to a piano recital, from a girl the narrator barely knows. Although the narrator puzzles over the motive behind the invitation, he decides to attend. On the day of the recital, he dresses up nicely and makes the trek to a remote address in the mountains. When he arrives at the concert hall, however, something is amiss—nobody is there, and he is left alone with nothing but the expensive red bouquet he had bought. He settles on a bench within a small park, struggling to understand why the girl invited him to a recital that didn’t exist. Did she do it out of spite?
As he speculates, his mind begins to spiral and he suffers a panic attack. He shuts his eyes tightly, waiting for his anxiety to pass. When he opens them again, a mysterious old man has taken the seat beside him. In the ensuing conversation, the old man tells the narrator to imagine a circle, with “several centers—no, sometimes an infinite number—and it’s a circle with no circumference.” While the narrator insists such a circle would be difficult to picture, the old man cryptically responds:
“Of course it is […] There’s nothing worth getting in this world that you can get easily […] But, when you put in that much time and effort, if you do achieve that difficult thing it becomes the cream of your life.”
“Cream?”
“In French, they have an expression: crème de la crème. Do you know it?” “I don’t,” I said. I knew no French.
“The cream of the cream. It means the best of the best. The most important essence of life—that’s the crème de la crème.”
As the narrator closes his eyes again, trying to picture that circle without much success, the old man vanishes. The narrator, without realizing, has calmed down.
Back in the present, the narrator concludes his story. His listener interjects—“I really don’t get it… What actually happened then?” The narrator, admitting he still doesn’t fully understand the meaning behind the old man’s words, replies: “Things like this happen sometimes […] Inexplicable, illogical events that nevertheless are deeply disturbing.” Whenever one of these inexplicable events occurs, the narrator explains how he always returns to the circle, whose meaning has only grown clearer with time:
“Sometimes I feel that I can sort of grasp what that circle is, but a deeper understanding eludes me. This circle is, most likely, not a circle with a concrete, actual form but, rather, one that exists only within our minds. When we truly love somebody, or feel deep compassion, or have an idealistic sense of how the world should be, or when we discover faith (or something close to faith)—that’s when we understand the circle as a given […] even now, whenever something disturbing happens to me, I ponder again that special circle, and the boring and the worthless. And the unique cream that must be there, deep inside me.”
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Part of the charm of “Cream” is that its main message resists easy interpretation. Through a dialogue reminiscent of the archetypal Buddhist interplay between student and master, Murakami conveys to readers the ambiguity he believes shrouds our lives, and the meaning we can find in spite of it. It remains unclear if the old man in the story is real, or only a figment of the narrator’s imagination—regardless, he appears at a time in the narrator’s life when he most needs guidance.
Regardless of its exact definition, the old man designates the illusive circle as the crème de la crème of life—the bit of foam on the top that makes life worth living. It is precisely because this circle is so enigmatic that the narrator finds comfort in it—after all, different people have different truths. In an accompanying interview for the New Yorker, journalist Deborah Treisman asked Murakami: “Although the narrator never solved the mystery of what happened that day, he did learn something that stayed with him ever since. Did having no answer become an answer in itself?” Murakami responded: “Sometimes asking the right question is better than getting the right answer.”
While seemingly unrelated to the rest of the course content, I believe one of the reasons why this reading was assigned to us is that it offers a philosophical salve for when we must grapple with the inherent contradictions in our lives. In doing so, it reminds us of the power of narratives in the first place: to construct meaning from the meaningless. The imaginary circle has infinite centers because its center is wherever we choose to set it—the love we have for someone else, the faith we place in our ideals, or the dedication we hold for our ambitions. This multitude of centers is a guiding light of sorts, and it is what Murakami believes we should hold close as we move about our lives. Yet, it’s also the very boundless and effervescent nature of the imaginary circle that allows it to encompass all the incongruities of our stories.
As we will continue to learn throughout our careers, medicine is full of these moments of uncertainty and strangeness, and sometimes, injustice and tragedy. I believe “Cream” empowers us to consider these moments as inevitable, even an integral part of the human experience. Likewise, the multiplicity of its central metaphor implies the multiplicity of attitudes that people hold. Part of the power of narratives is recognizing and creating space for these differences, especially those that are still unwritten or unspoken.
Finally, the abstract circle compels us to consider our own potential as similarly limitless. At the end of the story, the narrator talks about a “unique cream” that exists deep inside of him. Here, Murakami argues that while the circle is a tool for people to use to make meaning of their lives, the meaning they are seeking need not be external and can instead be found within. The circle is not something we must strive for; it is something we already possess—a unique disposition we bring to the world. The crème de la crème of life is what we choose to make of it, it is how we choose to meet challenges with creativity, grace, and compassion. It is a subtle nod to Stoic and Buddhist thought alike, telling us that it isn’t about what events take place, but how we choose to face them.
Extending this metaphor to our careers, the “circle with many centers and no circumference” presents a closing message of hope. Faced with an open future, each of us has the power to choose what matters. However, it isn’t just about heading down a straight path. We must each remember to draw a circle with no circumference—to encompass what cannot always be contained, and to expect the unexpected.
