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Traveling Practice
by
Norishiro Yusuke
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| Title: | Traveling Practice |
| Author: | Norishiro Yusuke |
| Genre: | Novel |
| Written: | 2021 (Eng. 2026) |
| Length: | 179 pages |
| Original in: | Japanese |
| Availability: | Traveling Practice - UK |
| Traveling Practice - Canada | |
| directly from: Honford Star |
- Japanese title: 旅する練習
- Translated by Takami Nieda
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Our Assessment:
B : roundabout telling that does ultimately pay off
See our review for fuller assessment.
The complete review's Review:
Traveling Practice is narrated by a novelist (and some-time cram-school teacher), his account mainly about a few days in March, 2020 when he went on a trip with his football- (soccer-)obsessed niece, Abi.
The girl, just finishing elementary school at the time, is a talented player -- playing among boys, too -- but not a great student.
While at a soccer camp the previous summer she had borrowed a book there -- "a random paperback".
Not much of a reader, she had got caught up in this one, excited that she found herself actually able and wanting to read a whole book -- "It was terrific !"
But she took it with her -- "I couldn't help myself" --, and guiltily now feels she should return it.
Abi's helpful uncle arranges to take her to Kashima -- to go see a game of the local Antlers team, making for a perfect opportunity to return the book.
(The narrator often practices with his niece and they had: "taken several overnight trips to see matches before".)
Covid gets in the way of that plan -- school and her final match are cancelled, and Japan slowly begins to lock down -- but the uncle has an idea: they can make a different kind of journey out of it, a pilgrimage, walking all the way to Kashima.
He wants to write, she wants to practice her ball-skills -- and they have a clear goal: to return the book in Kashima.
So that, the narrator tells her, is what they'll do:
"So we keep doing this 'til we reach Kashima ?"The narrator explains that he had taken up: "writing landscape descriptions as both a hobby and a profession about three years ago", and numerous notebook-entries from their trip are interspersed in the narrative, scene-descriptions especially of nature around them and some of what they come across. Abi is also constantly practicing her juggling and the narrator agrees to jot down the number of times she can keep the ball in the air after each entry.
"Yep, walking, writing, kicking."
Abi parroted back, "Walking, writing, kicking." And I added, "A trip for practicing."
Along the way they also pass several spots with literary associations, such as a site marking the former residence of author Naoya Shiga. The narrator notes these with some interest, but the account focuses largely on the journey itself, with Abi constantly pushing herself and the ball. Eventually, they also join up with another person -- and Antlers fan -- who is on a pilgrimage of sorts, Midori, a recent college graduate looking ahead to starting her job.
Midori is a relatively new fan of the Antlers -- won over by the admirable actions and then history of Brazilian soccer player Zico with the team; his exemplary story is presented in some detail. She and Abi easily bond.
The coronavirus hangs over things in the background, but isn't much more than an inconvenience, such as when the narrator finds a library he'd like to use closed. His few mentions of it suggest the changes it causes are noticeable, but they really don't effect them much:
Even as the coronavirus pandemic became woven into our daily speech, the river continued to flow unchanged. Paying it no mind, Abi kept handling the ball, focused solely on improving her skills. It was what she had sought for herself -- and would continue to seek. To live with nothing else in mind, to live solely for that. In a time when the future seemed so uncertain, one might say that such a way of living was entirely suited to the moment.Midori, meanwhile, is at a juncture in her life, and her encounters with the two travelers help her find her way.
Near the end of their trip the narrator describes a scene where, at the time: "it had never crossed my mind then to sit down and write about it" -- but then he explains how: "More than two months later, I returned to that place and sat alone where the three of us had stood. I picked up my pen, trying to recall what I had once found so unforgettable". He then includes yet another notebook entry -- but this one dated 26 May, quite a while after they had made it back home -- and then reflects on trying to capture that past scene, including how:
By continuing to write, I preserve within myself an awareness of what lies hidden, allowing it to remain a modest source of light in this world.There's some foreshadowing here, but only at the very end -- again presented from a greater distance -- does the narrator reveal the pivotal occurrence, throwing everything into a slightly different light. It certainly hits hard -- arguably even unfairly so; certainly, Traveling Practice ultimately turns out to be a much more wistful, melancholy tale than its journey-of-self-(and-other-)discovery had seemed for most of the way.
When they get to know Midori she observes their relationship and one of her first observations is:
"Your uncle teaches you about flowers and all sorts of things."Even as he seems to present his tale, about these few days he spent with his niece, straightforwardly he leaves the most significant thing unaddressed until the conclusion of his account -- though, of course, arguably what was significant was that relatively uneventful trip itself and the small moments along the way that he chronicled; that, and not what happened afterwards, is 'what life is about', as it were, Norishiro seems to be suggesting.
"He does if I ask. Otherwise he doesn't tell me a single thing. I don't think he know how life works -- he doesn't have any friends."
"Not entirely wrong," I chimed in.
Arguably, also, the narrator holds too much back -- not necessarily in this story, but in his life in general as, for example, at the end he admits, regarding Midori: "I have refrained from making contact" -- presumably not wanting to disturb her as she establishes herself, though, really, he should .....
Most of Traveling Practice is a -- somewhat deceptively -- simple tale, but it certainly makes and leaves its mark in its final turn, which in turn changes how one sees everything that has come before -- surely also as Norishiro intended. The narrator reveals a fair bit about himself, but Abi and Midori are the much stronger personalities here, and he can't quite come out of his shell sufficiently -- showing his interest in, for example, various literary figures, or how knowledgeable he is about nature but not fully forthcoming. As Abi complains: "he doesn't tell me a single thing" if she doesn't ask, and readers too might have wanted him to be prodded more along the way.
- M.A.Orthofer, 17 June 2026
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Traveling Practice:
- Honford Star publicity page
- Kodansha publicity page
- See Index of Japanese literature
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Japanese author Norishiro Yusuke (乗代 雄介) was born in 1986.
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© 2026 the complete review
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