This Ruler

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This Ruler

File:This Ruler.jpg
Author	Mark Duff
Illustrator
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Fiction, Philosophy, magic realism, Coming of Age, Education
Publisher	Mark Duff
Pages	259
ISBN	9780578476315 Search this book on .

This Ruler

This Ruler is a 2019 debut novel published by American author Mark Duff. It is an allegorical story that follows veteran teacher Zack Tyndall and a group of immigrant and local students at fictional Elysium Hills High School. The novel is a cutting exposé about the American education system written in a style that blends magical realism with philosophy with just a bit of satire. The story follows student characters Sialia Torres and James Malachite from their first day of high school to their last. The students and teachers navigate a school landscape in which private publishing companies and ambitious school administrators materially benefit from the constant change of curricula and state-mandated standardized tests. The novel has two basic focuses: the story of teenagers and their journey through their high school years, and an exposé of the business plan of the publishing companies that make the standardized tests and curricula. It also calls out the need for educational ethics.

plot

The story is non-linier and told in a magical realism style. There is an omnipresent unreliable narrator that alternates between the honest, humorous antics by the teenagers and dishonest actions by school administrators, an educational consultant, and the publishing companies that make the standardized tests and curricula. The stories are infused with life lessons, master art work, poetry, natural history, and history. Soliloquies echo in the minds of characters flows throughout the story. A parallel story unfolds as two teenage Aztec Native Americans flee the conquistador Hernán Cortés during the conquest of Mexico some five hundred years ago. The students in the book are on their own personal journeys to overcome challenges of being immigrants and what it means to belong.

characters

• Sialia Torres: Female lead character, insightful standout student and Mexican immigrant. Sialia means blue bird and represents truth and fidelity.
• James Malachite (Mali): Male lead character involved in some of the story’s most outrageous events. Malachite represents green from the green copper ore. Mali is a misnomer because he is not bad but strives to be good.
• Zack Tyndall: Science teacher, biologist and student advocate. Named for John Tyndall and the optical property known as the Tyndall Effect.
• Dr. Jonathan Stufa: High school principal who cashes in on the new curriculum. Stufa means vapor rising from a fissure in the earth, and is an anagram of Faust. Stufa is the Faustian Man and pursues his personal ambitions.
• George Combe: Assistant principal. Named after the 19th century proponent of phrenology and founder of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society.
• Joel Huastoria: Educational consultant peddling the expensive curriculum and training. A huastorium (plural: huastoria) is a structure on a parasitic plant or fungi that sucks the vital juices out of its host.
• Sandy: Sialia’s friend and prototypical overachiever.
• Helen: Friend of Sialia and Sandy who discovers beauty can be a burden.
• Ryan: James’ friend and intelligent wisecracker.
• Hector: Friend of James and Ryan, Mexican immigrant, poor and street smart.
• Miguel Angel and Josue: El Salvadoran immigrant students.
• JR: Oddball outcast who finds a measure of acceptance.
• Anci and Cualli: Native American inhabitants of the alternative timeline who flee the arrival of Cortes and become bearers of the Codex. In the Nahuatl language, Anci means graceful women, and Cualli means good natured man.
• Georgie Bruno: Street artist who paints poems and famous paintings as graffiti. Named after Giordano Bruno a 16th century monk burned at the stake for heresy.

Symbolism and metaphors

The entire book is an allegory for the American education system and the personal journey of teenagers as they navigate high school. Every animal, piece of artwork, historical and cultural story is a metaphor. The overriding themes are change, contingency, dualism, inequality, greed, dishonesty, a lack of pragmatism/overt optimism, conquest, imperialism, colonialism, manifest destiny, belief systems, want and desire.

Dominant themes in This Ruler include the journey of teenagers to discover who they are; in essence Socrates’ “know thyself.” Also, apparent throughout This Ruler is the mythological nature of the imagery in the writing, similar to other magical realism stories. Those in high school create their own mythology, and that mythology informs the memories of all who have graduated. Another prevailing theme is that standardized tests and standardized curricula are a myth, a scam imposed by mandates and laws from outside any given school.

Artwork

Artwork is found throughout the narrative and includes extensive examples of master paintings, pop songs, poems, plays, movies, and books. Often the artwork is introduced by either Sialia or the poet Georgie Bruno. For example, the first painting is The Money Changer and His Wife by Quentin Matsys that shows money, desire, hypocrisy and the question of good deeds balancing out bad actions.

Easter Island

Easter Island themes can be found throughout the book, but are most prominent in the chapters Monolithic and Easter Island. The cultural, historic and ecological lessons of the island are directly related to the environment of schools with limited and diminished resources and a culture of belief in standardized testing and standardized curricula, i.e. monoliths. This is well illustrated by the iconic stone heads, called Moai, that are prominent features on the island.

Conquistadors

A secondary storyline unfolds about the conquistadors and the conquest of Mexico. Throughout the book the storyline abruptly jumps to another time and place with overlapping mythologies of Native American (Aztec), Spanish, and Catholic. It tells a story of two teenagers fleeing the advancing army of Cortes. They are tasked with taking the Codex to Aztec High Priests for safe keeping. Much of the feel and language is in a Native American vernacular and the story takes on a mythical aspect. The conquest was a forcible takeover, a cultural genocide of the past, extreme greed, and prejudice diving horrific historic atrocities. All of these actions were sanctioned and condone by the catholic church which also greatly profited from the conquest. The analogy suggests that the publishing companies (who make the standardized tests, standardized curricula, and training) are conquerers of American schools as they melt them down to fill the coffers of their greed.

The Codex

Mesoamerican codices are real. They are books with various pictorial glyphs telling historical and cultural stories of events in Aztec, Maya and other new world cultures. Most surviving codices are post-conquest but some may predate this. Many are stored in the Vatican Secret Archives, which is a palpable irony given that the culture that destroyed the Native Americans in Mesoamerica is now tasked with preserving it.

In This Ruler, The Codex contains the fictitious Native American myth of The Two-handed Monster and the Overlord. Anci and Cualli are given the task of taking the Codex to safekeeping because it contains the secret to surviving the cultural upheaval of the conquest. They read the stories in the codex and find that they are about time sequences, money, taxes and changing things so more goes to The Overlord. At the end of the book The Codex is revealed to be the business plan of Bradmoor Publishing Company. In the book, Bradmoor also continually changes the tests, lowers the scores, has a media blitz pointing this out and then saves the day (deus ex machina) with a new curriculum matching the new test, until they change the test again. This stems from Duff’s personal observations as a teacher. Meanwhile the schools cut classes to pay for the new curriculum, under the guise of being benevolent, like the Christians saving the infidel savages.

Animals

The natural history of animals plays a prominent role throughout the book with some chapters predominantly about specific animals. Most of the animals are parasites, invasive species, and predators. The animals represent things or concepts in teenage life or the education system. For example, the African clawed frogs found in many chapters of the book, represent greed and gluttony and are like ever-watching gargoyles in Tyndall’s science classroom. Other animals include: ticks, leaches, crab spiders, ravens, starlings, and slate-colored solitaires.

Conclusion

As the novel ends, there is no great toppling of the testing companies, just the exposing of the business plan. Meanwhile the teenagers end up knowing about themselves and who they are. Despite all the metaphors and allegory, the novel really is about a teenager’s journey during a defined period of time. The book shows the youthful beauty of teenagers, who couple honest exuberance with being brash and bold.

Reception

Like many pieces of literary fiction, the novel’s reception has been mixed; with both positive and negative statements made about the book. The writing demonstrates eloquent lyrical prose in part. The constant interplay of present-day reality, memory, and history jumbles the storyline, making it hard to follow. The complicated choppy presentation makes for a difficult read. It is reminiscent of the free-flowing experimental prose of James Joyce. Some have found the dark, somber picture of greed and ambition within the American education system inconsistent with the overly optimistic external persona presented by schools.

External Links

• [1] Retired teacher Takes On Standardized Tests Aspen Public Radio Interview

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