Triopia
 Bryan Richards
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Word Wright International
  ISBN: 0971383278


And The Burden of Excess -- a young Mormon missionary's spiritual & historical journey through the Middle East.

Daniel could be a poster boy for his church: he's bright, handsome & has baptized plenty of converts during his two years as a missionary in Canada. When he travels to Israel to spend a semester in Jerusalem, studying the roots of Judaism, Islam & his own Mormonism, the conflict in that most holy of cities, mirrors his inner turmoil.

In this coming-of-age novel, we follow a young & articulate American man into the strangeness of foreign lands, into the battle field between intractable enemies, & into the hallowed halls of traditional religious studies.

Peppered with encounters of the first-love kind, a handful of epiphanies & a slow awakening to the dichtomies inherent in religions, this author takes you along in the footsteps of the pilgrims; lets you linger there amid the ancient traditions rocked by modern warfare & the smells of a hot & fabled land, of cordite & fear, mischief & food.

This young man has returned from his missionary years with a gnawing distress about his spiritual confidence. No one mentions the dejection & depression that can come after such an intense period, not unlike post-partum blues, so he labors alone toward the abyss of decision. He senses he has to make a choice of either turning back into belonging to his church, or moving on forward into the world. Daniel hopes that this six month study in the Holy Land will be an opportunity to wrestle with his demons & discover his destiny.

Triopia and The Burden of Excess is curiously engaging & easy to read. Lots of digressions into deep philosophy & history, liberally flavored with youthful braggadocio. It is a story of one young man's struggle for his own soul, his own place in the scheme of things, & his own spiritual autonomy, if that isn't an oxymoron. It is the struggle so many of us must make when once we think about life outside of our parents' faith.

Written before the recent escalation between Palestinians & Israelis, I wanted so much more details about his travels, his studies & how his center of gravity shifted.

With his class of normal, inquiring & mischievous students, Daniel follows in the footsteps of biblical history; taking side trips into orthodox neighborhoods, to Egypt & to Jordan, all the while experiencing that gullibility to which tourists among strangers are heir. His comments about “the natives” & their ways of living their lives are fraught with cleaner-than-thou-isms.

His descriptions of what he learns from his Mormon teachers & friends show a young mind thinking things through. His friendship with the enigmatic Anthony, cracks further open his curiosity. What he learns is both trite Sunday school indoctrination & provocative ideas outside the safe protocols of his church.

There's much philosophy, physics & the history of the Mormon Church, Judaism & the Roman Empire throughout, although the history of Islam is generally one-dimensional.

There is also the playfulness & intolerance of youth, & a detailed explanation of what triopia means.

Certainly Triopia will help young men & women follow their thoughts & explore the world around them. It raises a lot of questions &, as in real life, finds few concrete answers.

Daniel arrives in Israel an insulated, clean young American Mormon, & leaves somewhat more open to other cultures, somewhat more certain of himself & somewhat more forgiving, mature & re-energized for the next part of his life.

In the end, Daniel leaves the Holy Land with a heart full of love, a mind full of hope & a good story to tell to his grandchildren!

Bryan Richards based much of his book on his own experiences of when he studied at the Brigham Young University's Jerusalem Center for Ancient and Modern History. He continues writing while working on complex engineering projects at NASA.

I was fortunate enough to gain an Interview with Bryan Richards, & I think you will find he is an author who has a lot of fascinating things to say!


(03/31/02)

Rebecca