Review
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Title: The Corianton Saga
Author: Ardis E. Parshall
Publisher: BCC Press
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2022
Number of Pages: 489
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9781948218528
Price: $15.95
Reviewed by Kevin Folkman for the Association for Mormon Letters
Our introduction to the scriptures as children generally begins with hearing the most well-known stories, such as Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Jonah, and the Whale, or the miracle of the loaves and fishes. We learn these stories in childhood and only later understand them as more than just stories, as lessons to be learned. We find ourselves identifying with Captain Moroni in the Book of Mormon, turning his cloak into the Title of Liberty, and using the story of Helaman’s stripling warriors to help our youth to believe in what their mothers teach them.
But in the scriptures, most stories are incomplete, short vignettes that capture only a brief moment in the full narrative of someone’s life. Have we wondered if the rich young man, who was counseled by Christ to give all that he had to the poor, had a change of heart after he went away sorrowing? Nicodemus appears briefly at the beginning and the end of Christ’s ministry, but we don’t get much of a picture of what was going through his mind as he followed the Savior’s life. These scriptural accounts only provide hints to what must be more detailed narratives for the subjects of these stories. They provide simple characters useful in teaching a principle.
Such is the story of Corianton, one of the sons of Alma the Younger in the Book of Mormon. Corianton accompanies his father Alma, brother Shiblon, Amulek, and other missionaries in an attempt to convert the apostate Zoramites, but instead falls for the harlot Isabel and leaves his missionary duties. Corianton is then admonished to repent by his father, who speaks eloquently about the atonement and other topics in four chapters. Corianton only appears again when it is mentioned that he goes “…forth to the land northward in a ship, to carry forth provisions unto the people who had gone forth to that land.” (Alma 63) Nothing is said as to the state of his repentance, whether he had a wife and family or if he returned again to Zarahemla from his voyage. Corianton’s story as it appears in the Book of Mormon seems to exist as a prelude to Alma’s doctrinal discourse.
Such a brief narrative invites speculation as to the rest of his life. Fortunately, we have multiple examples of that speculation by a variety of authors in a short story, a novella, multiple scripts for a play, a screenplay for a film, and a television script. Researcher and historian Ardis E. Parshall has collected these multiple stories written from 1889 to 1963 in The Corianton Saga. Parshall adds a brief history of the stories and information about the authors. Her introduction places each of the stories in the context of their time, and when and how they were published, staged, produced, or in one case, not previously available. Parshall is a careful editor, leaving in place the original spelling and even page counts where available. Brief details are given about publications, the various stage productions, the challenges of producing the film version, and how they (mostly) failed or succeeded.
The first Corianton story is by B. H. Roberts, published as a serial in 1889 in The Contributor, the official publication of the Church’s Mutual Improvement Association. At 17,000 words, it is the shortest of the multiple versions of the story and is very much a reflection of the early Home Literature movement in 19th-century Utah.[i] As Parshall points out, “few would consider [Robert’s story] great literature,”[ii] it is melodramatic in nature and “ultimately collapsing into didacticism.” Roberts frames the story with Corianton being influenced by Korihor, the Anti-Christ, as a possible motivation for Corianton’s actions, but otherwise stays close to the actual account in the Book of Mormon.
Julie A. MacDonald followed with a serialized rendering of the Corianton story in the Church’s Young Women’s Journal in 1896-1897. Twice as long as Robert’s story, A Ship of Hagoth covers some of the same narrative, but mostly deals with a love triangle between Corianton, the harlot Isabel, and a Lamanite woman named Relia, an invented character who is one of the Anti-Nephi-Lehites, expelled from their homelands and exiled in the Book of Mormon Land Jershon. Much of the story takes place in the aftermath of Shiblon’s departure in one of the Ships of Hagoth from the end of the Book of Alma in the Book of Mormon.
The remaining versions of Corianton’s story are primarily the work of Orestes Utah Bean, a schoolteacher from Richfield, Utah, an “…eccentric with unshakeable confidence in his own genius.”[iii] An aspiring actor, Bean organized his own acting company, touring small towns in southern Utah and gaining experience in staging productions. After encountering the Roberts and MacDonald versions of the Corianton story, Bean plagiarized their works and wrote an over-the-top version that included many more invented characters, dramatic encounters, lots of swordplay, and original music. Eventually, he was able to stage multiple productions of Corianton: An Aztek Romance in Salt Lake City. Most accounts indicate that audiences responded favorably, and Bean took the production on the road in other western states with mixed success. Outside his home state, audiences didn’t identify with the story. Ultimately his entire company was stranded in Kansas City when funding ran out, leaving the cast members to find their own way home.
Undeterred, Bean revised the script with an eye to producing it on Broadway. Finding new financing, he eventually hired professional actors, commissioned new music, and opened at the Oscar Hammerstein Manhattan Opera House in 1912. Critics were brutal, audiences meager, and the play closed after only six performances.[iv] Still convinced that the story had legs, Bean returned to friendlier audiences in Utah, revising the script again. Eventually, Bean connected with some Utah-based filmmakers, got new financing, and wrote a screenplay. Plans for a full Technicolor production with recorded music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had to be scaled back as production costs soared. The movie finally premiered in black and white in 1931 in Salt Lake, again to mostly negative reviews, and large financial losses. Bean’s backers filed lawsuits in an attempt to recover their money, forcing the film out of movie theaters and Bean out of Utah. The final entry in Parshall’s book is a television script written by Bean’s widow, but never produced.
What is interesting is that in all the different versions, even with many invented characters, much of the story stays the same. Korihor the Anti-Christ, draws Corianton into his circle of rebellious influence. While on his mission to the Zoramites, Corianton is drawn to Isabel, is rescued by his brother Shiblon, and is primarily guilty of naivete and evil appearances rather than actual sexual sin. Isabel, also known as Joan or Zoan de Isabel in the Bean stories, is more of a wealthy courtesan involved in palace intrigue and not a common prostitute. Love triangles abound. Reconciliation and repentance for Corianton all take place in the stories’ finales. In all but Robert’s version, Isabel falls in love with the dashing young Nephite, is rejected by him, and then dies in melodramatic fashion.
What differences exist between the stories are minor. Bean’s scripts all involve swordplay and dramatic stage direction to heighten the tension. MacDonald’s version uses the device of Relia, the converted Lamanite and love interest for Corianton, to the same end. Roberts writes the simplest story with the least literary license taken.
In the end, the modern reader is forced to confront incongruities between the scriptural account and the stories it inspired. Was Corianton actually guilty of sexual sin? It is implied in the scriptural account, but never specifically stated. In The Corianton Saga, it seems as if the authors could not imagine Corianton being able to fully repent of such behavior, that such sin was indeed the “sin next to murder.” Corianton must then be chaste, and guilty only of carelessness, pride, and not avoiding the appearance of evil. In a similar fashion, overwhelmed by Corianton’s good looks and innate inner purity, Isabel wants to repent and spend her life with him, but such hope is vain, considering her past.
What, then, is the value of these melodramatic stories? Ultimately, they offer glimpses into our Mormon culture’s past. These were the values of our grandparents and great-grandparents. When Corianton notices that Relia, her cousin, and other Lamanite exiles in the Land of Jershon were beginning to show a lightening of their skin tones as they distanced themselves from their wicked pasts, the readers and audiences of the time didn’t cringe as modern audiences would do. Having a pure heart led to greater prowess in battle, and surely the son of a prophet wouldn’t violate the law of chastity. These artifacts came directly from the author’s and reader’s understanding of the Book of Mormon at the time these works were written.
These are melodramas, no doubt, and Orestes Utah Bean had more in common with P.T. Barnum than William Shakespeare. They are, however, markers of the growing Home Literature movement from the late 19th to the early 20th century, and are as much a part of our heritage as the stories we were taught about the pioneers. Artistic license, both in history and fiction, is thick on the ground in a church that is only now approaching its 200th anniversary. Parshall, as she has with other obscure and forgotten pieces of Mormon-related literature, has preserved these reimaginings of scant scriptural accounts for modern readers.[v] We can scarcely measure how far we have come without knowing where we started. The Corianton Saga documents some of the stepping stones along that path, without which you could never complete the journey.
[i] After decades of denigrating fiction and dime novels by general authorities of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, attitudes changed towards the end of the 19th century, and creative work by home-grown authors and artists was encouraged. Apostle Orson F. Whitney advocated for “literature whose top would touch heaven” and heralded an increase in literature by Mormon authors for Mormon audiences. See “People of Paradox,” Terryl Givens, Oxford University Press, 2007.
[ii] Intro page x
[iii] Intro page xv
[iv] Intro page xxii
[v] For examples, see Dime Novel Mormons; Boadicia, The Mormon Wife; and The Mormoness; or The Trials of Mary Maverick from The Mormon Image in Literature series from Kofford Books, coedited with Michael Austin, among others.